Microsoft recently released the Windows ADK for Widows 10 version 20.04, and the version includes a new version of the App-V Sequencer. Here is what we know.
1) Although ADK components often work on OS versions other than the one it is released with, in this case you must use Windows 10 20.04 OS when using the ADK sequencer from 20.04. The sequencer installs just fine, but when you try to run the sequencer it fails to find a required component.
2) The new sequencer seems to solve the problem with Short Names that we saw when packaging on 19.03 and 19.09 OS systems.
When App-V captures files, it creates unique “short name” references in the FileSystemMetadata.xml file to help with application portability. We have been seeing broken packages due to this issue, and fixing them using the TMEdit tool. The problem was that the short names were in some cases failing to shorten intermediate folders, such as in this entry:
<Entry Long="Root\VFS\Windows\Microsoft.Net\Framework64\v4.0.30319" Short="Root\VFS\t3h1jly3.3rk\Microsoft.Net\Framework64\v4.0.30319" />
While it was unnecessary to shorten the “Windows” directory, as that is only 8 characters, that was still legal. But “Microsoft” is 9 characters and should have been shortened. And “Framework64” should have been shortened too. Depending on if the bad entries are needed for publishing extensions, this will cause the package to fail either at publishing time or when you launch any app inside the package (including just a cmd prompt). TMEdit is a post-sequencing editing tool for App-V packages that, among other things, will detect the problem and fix the package for you.
The new version of the sequencer will now produce short-names like this:
<Entry Long="Windows">
<Entry Long="Microsoft.Net" Short=5ecaiui2.5cj">
<Entry Long="Framework64" Short=b2stiqns.clo">
<Entry Long="v4.0.30319" Short 1piiqmtj.e4u">
</Entry>
</Entry>
></Entry>
These look correct and are not causing any problems that I have detected so far. I haven’t noticed any other changes so far, but if I do I’ll post an update.
It is great to see Microsoft continuing to support the product, even if it took a year!
