Enabling built-in App-V client in Windows Server 2016

Microsoft has integrated their application virtualization technology named Microsoft App-V within Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. In this post I will explain how to enable the integrated client and how to use it.

To demonstrate the built-in App-V client in Windows Server 2016 I will use a clean installed Virtual Machines running on VMware Workstation 12 Pro.

With the following powershell command you will get the Windows version.

(Get-WmiObject -class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption

The binaries

Without enabling the App-v Client in Server 2016 there are already files for App-V present on the system. These binaries are located in “C:\Windows\System32”

Also the Microsoft App-V Client Services is by default installed. The service is disabled by default, you cannot start this services without enabling App-V.

App-V Powershell commands

The following App-V Powershell commands are available:

There is one new command: Enable-Appv
We will use this command to Enable the App-V client on this Server 2016 OS.

After enabling App-V you can use the App-V powershell commands like you always do.

You can show the configuration in powershell with the following command:

Get-AppvClientConfiguration

Publish App-V package

To demonstrate the function of the App-V client I will publish an App-V package on Server 2016.

For publishing an App-V package you first need to add it to the client, after adding it you can publish it. Here an oneliner to accomplish this.

Add-AppvClientPackage "%AppVShare%\7-Zip_16.04\7-Zip_16.04.appv" | Publish-AppvClientPackage

After publishing the application you can use it like any other application. In this case I can start 7-Zip manager via menu start.

During the publishing of the application the App-V client will create a cache of the files needed to run the App-V package. Default these cached files are located in “C:\ProgramData\AppV”