SCCM 2007 R3 and AppV 4.6 [SP1]: Client Compatibilities

You’d think it would be easier than this; that SCCM could at least keep it’s own clients up to date. No. So best I document this all in one place in case someone else runs into it.

Issue: Upgrade SCCCM 2007 to R3, and Create a package to install the App-V 4.6 (with or without SP1) client and get it to be properly installed. Create a virtual application package and try using it. The Virtual Application Packages fail claiming the App-V client isn’t installed.

Troubleshooting:

1) Looked at the VirtualApp.log file in the c:\Windows\system32\ccm\logs folder. Here I find the message:

“The installed AppVirtMgmt version [4.6] cannot be used with this version of SCCM.”

2) Checked the App-V Client install and configuration. Correct.

3) Checked the version of SCCM client installed on the machine.

4.0.6221.1000.

4) Double checked the version of SCCM on the server using the ConfigMgr Console (right click on Site server and select properties)

4.0.6487.2000

5) Checked the version of the SCCM client installer (ccmexec) on the SCCM server

4.0.6221.2000

6) Googled and determined that to support App-V 4.6 clients, SCCM needs to have KB977384 installed to upgrade the SCCM Client. This KB is not needed for SCCM in general, but is needed if you want to use App-V client 4.6 or above. There might also be a few other reasons to apply the KB, from what I’ve read.

The documented correct method to install the KB is to install the KB’s MSI file on the SCCM Site Server, which will extract the KB’s msp file and create a SCCM package to push it out to clients. Sounds good, right? Checking for this I see that indeed I had already installed the msi and the package exists, has been pushed to the DPs, and I already advertized it to those clients. So what gives?

Look for the msp log file on the client, none.

7) Manually locate the msp in the client sccm cache and run the program with arguments as specified in the created package. It fails, telling me that the program to be updated is missing or the wrong version.

Solution: This issue is that the SCCM system was upgraded multiple times. It seems that the 6221.1000 SCCM client is something less that the 2007 R2 with SP2 version (although I am unclear what version it is).

Using the ccmsetup.exe located in the site server Client folder, I log onto the client system and try to upgrade the SCCM client to the R2 version manually using the syntax posted in everyone’s posts I find on google:

ccmsetup /mp:[server] /logon /SMSSITECODE=[code] /FSP:[server]

substituting in the appropriate information whereever square brackets are shown above.

For me, this silently fails and the client is not upgraded. Why? Because the command has one of the STUPIDEST syntaxes you will see. Just what would you think “/logon” means? Maybe that it will need to logon to the server? NOOOOOOO! It means “if I already have a client installed, then don’t do an upgrade, just quit silently”.

I run the command without /logon, and after a while (it does the install without a GUI so you have to watch the task manager to know when it is done), the client has been upgraded to version 4.0.6487.2000.

Now I can run the KB977384 patch to the SCCM client. The client has been upgraded to version 4.0.6487.2157

And now my virtual applciation advertisements work.