Oracle Instant Client 10.2–sequence

Posted by nickekallen on January 16, 2012 in App-V 0 Comment

An old recipe that was laying around for Oracle Instant Client 10.2.
Prerequisites
Some good things to know;
1. Oracle Client 10.2 contains some defects that requires the user that is running it to have Create global object permissions.
2. The user needs read-access minimum to the directory you will install the application to.

Sequence
Installation
Unpack all Oracle-clients to (instantclient-basic-win32-10.2.0.4.zip and instantclient-odbc-win32-10.2.0.4.zip);
C:\instantclient_10_2

Append C:\instantclient_10_2 to the PATH variable

Create tnsnames.ora in c:\instantclient_10_2 with the following content;

# tnsnames.ora Network Configuration File: D:\oracle\product\10.2.0\network\admin\tnsnames.ora
# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.
SERVER.FQDN =
(DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS_LIST =
      (ADDRESS = (COMMUNITY = tcp.WORLD)(PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = FQDN)(PORT = 1531))
    )
    (CONNECT_DATA = (SID = name))
)

Execute the following command;

C:\instantclient_10_2>odbc_install.exe JA
Oracle ODBC Driver is installed successfully.
C:\instantclient_10_2>

Configuration

Create a new System DSN
Choose Oracle_in_instantclient10_2

System Event Notification Service, App-V and logon failure

Posted by nickekallen on January 9, 2012 in App-V, Windows 0 Comment

Located a very nice KB-article and wanted to be able to locate it again – hopefully it becomes more searchable using key words involved! Thanks to Justin Zarb for the find – personally, this was missed in a spreadsheet of articles that should have been on top of my head.

You may experience the following issues after you log on to a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2:

Your desktop does not load. You only see a blue or black background image.
Windows Explorer does not run, and you cannot access your data.
You receive the following message in a notification balloon:

Failed to connect to a windows service. Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service (SENS). This problem prevents limited users from logging on to the system. As an administrative user, you can review the System Event Log for details about why the service didn’t respond.

When the issue occurs, a service host that contains the following services crashes on system startup:

Certificate Propagation
Extensible Authentication Protocol
Group Policy Client
IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules
IP Helper
Server
Multimedia Class Scheduler
User Profile Service
Task Scheduler
System Event Notification Service
Shell Hardware Detection
Themes
Windows Management Instrumentation

You may experience this issue after you install certain applications, for example Microsoft Application Virtualization Client ( App-V ), on the computer.
Note You have to restart the computer one or more times to recover from this issue.

See this article; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2590550

Sequence Windows Live Messenger 5.1

Posted by nickekallen on January 2, 2012 in App-V 2 Comments

When you sequence Windows Live Messenger 5.1 and run the application on a Windows 7 system – the below error message can present itself in the Application log;

Activation context generation failed for “Q:\Windows Live Messenger\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Messenger\Msmsgs.exe”. Dependent Assembly Microsoft.Windows.Networking.RtcDll,language=”*”,
processorArchitecture=”X86“,
publicKeyToken=”6595b64144ccf1df“,type=”win32“,version=”5.2.1004.3” could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

The user only receives the below error message;

The client could not launch C:\Program Files (x86)\Messenger\Msmsgs.exe (rc 1F701939-000036B1

Reviewing whats captured – the below can be found under CSIDL_WINDOWS\WinSXS. If you compare the contents of the folder – you can spot a similar naming for one of the folders and the missing assembly.

Copy the DLL from the folder named RtcDLL to the working directory of Messenger (VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Messenger)

Create a file named msmgs.exe.manifest in the working directory with the below content;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<security>
<requestedPrivileges>
<requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false"></requestedExecutionLevel>
</requestedPrivileges>
</security>
</trustInfo>
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity type="<strong>win32</strong>" name="<strong>Microsoft.Windows.Networking.RtcDll</strong>" version="<strong>5.2.1004.3</strong>" processorArchitecture="<strong>x86</strong>"></assemblyIdentity>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>

Create a second manifest named Microsoft.Windows.Networking.RtcDll.manifest (placed in the msmgs.exe working directory)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<noInheritable />
<assemblyIdentity type="<strong>win32</strong>" name="<strong>Microsoft.Windows.Networking.RtcDll</strong>" publicKeyToken="<strong>6595b64144ccf1df</strong>" version="<strong>5.2.1004.3</strong>" processorArchitecture="<strong>x86</strong>" />
<file name="<strong>rtcdll.dll</strong>" />
</assembly>

Anything marked in bold is things that needs to correspond to the original error message or a file we want to reference.

Automatically generate name using ConfigMgr / MDT

Posted by nickekallen on December 26, 2011 in OSD 1 Comment

Using ConfigMgr with the MDT integration to deploy computers is quite common these days. It provides a certain level of automation that is quite easy to follow, however a topic that quite often comes up is how to automatically name computers during the deployment of a new client.

There are several ways – prompt the user for a name;
http://henkhoogendoorn.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-assign-computername-before-os.html

Use the serial number of the client to automatically generate a name;
http://www.2way.net.au/blog/post/2011/01/21/OSD-Task-Sequence-Set-Computer-Name-to-Serial-Number.aspx

Use a database to have a sequence number and prefix generate a name;
http://www.deployvista.com/Blog/JohanArwidmark/tabid/78/EntryID/120/language/sv-SE/Default.aspx

This was quite heavily developed using several other metrics (type, location etc etc)http://runebelune.blogspot.com/2011/03/generate-computer-names-in-mdt-2010sccm_30.html

SQL Management Studio 2008 R2 Express – 1603

Posted by nickekallen on December 19, 2011 in Deployment 1 Comment

If you are attempting to install the SQL Management Studio 2008 R2 Express for x64 on a Windows 7 system you might have quite a few installation errors. One that was consistently bugging me was a generic 1603 from the trin_aide_cpu32_1.log. This indicated a failure for the VSTA modules. The failure from the above log looked like this;

11/09/11 13:50:08 DDSet_Error: The Commandline ‘”C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\addinutil.exe” -PipelineRoot:”C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTA\Pipeline\.” -Rebuild -Silent’ returned non-zero value: -1073741819.

Running the command from an elevated command-prompt revealed this;

C:\Windows\system32>”C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\addinutil.exe” -Pip
elineRoot:”C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTA\Pipeline\.”
-Rebuild -Silent
Finished updating cache

For some reason – the above was considered a failure (due to its exit code) and stopped the installation from progressing. Reading a thread in the forums regarding a similar error (but not identical) one possibility that presented itself was to remove the custom action all together.

Reviewing the folder x64\setup – you can see the below content;

Trin_aide.msi is the installation-file in question and running it manually does not resolve the issue. Use InstEd to open the file and verify the actions in the table InstallExecuteSequence – normally it’s a good idea to sort that specific table after the sequence column – as it gives you an overview in what order the actions take place.

The following steps relate to our problem;

You can see the sequence number to the right. The yellow color indicates that the row was removed within an applied MST-file. InstEd (as opposed to Orca) allows you to create a new MST and will show the differences between additions and removals.

Installing the trin_aide.msi with the newly created MST-file resolves the problem – once the file has been installed the Management Studio setup will only verify that all resources are in place and simply bypass the installation altogether.

Include patches in a single run

Posted by nickekallen on December 12, 2011 in Deployment 0 Comment

PATCH property of the Windows Installer engine which arrived with the Windows Installer 4.0 release. Its quite useful during an initial deployment incase you maintain all files in their original state, include patches in a single installation run and avoid several reboots. Several patches can be listed in the property PATCH and they are installed from left to right. Use the semicolon ( ; ) as a separator. The file path for the patch, regardless of current working directory and location of the patch, has to be an absolute path.

set MSIARG=/i
set MSIARG=%MSIARG% "%~dp0\setup.msi"
set MSIARG=%MSIARG% PATCH="%~dp0\AppV4.6SP1-WD-KB2586968-x86.msp"
set MSIARG=%MSIARG% /qb
msiexec %MSIARG%

Source; http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa370576(v=vs.85).aspx

SolidWorks Explorer 2012–Sequence

Posted by nickekallen on December 5, 2011 in App-V 0 Comment

Preparation

Install SolidWorks Explorer 2012 natively – once installed, export the following registry; HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\FLEXnet Licensing Service

Sequence

Installation

Install SolidWorks Explorer according to App-V sequencing best practice and import the above mentioned registry key.

Configuration

Run the applications and configure them according to your needs. Its recommended that you register the product and configure them to not check for updates.
The below screenshot is an example configuration of SolidWorks eDrawing 2012 Tools –> Options could look like;

Starting both eDrawing (which is included) and Explorer to pre-configure settings is recommended.

Save your package

Deploy

Just deploy – it should work fairly well.

This recipe should resolve the two below problems;

Issues with Solidworks 2011 sp02
http://www.appdeploy.com/messageboards/tm.asp?m=81157
Sequencing Solidworks Explorer 2011: This version of Solidworks has not been commissioned properly, please contact your supplier (A100,66)
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/appvgeneralsequencing/thread/efe0594e-0d5c-40d0-aa56-edccac532d01/

HP Discover

Posted by nickekallen on December 1, 2011 in HP 0 Comment

I just had the possibility to attend HP Discover, which really was about discovering the broad depth of HP offerings. Considering the fact that previously my engagement has only been with their hardware, outsourcing services and a few tools within their software-suites – my knowledge of them were probably not the complete HP.

During the event we met quite a few people working with cutting edge technology and got the idea of how HP views the enterprise segment.Obviously quite a few sessions focused on their next step, product and services announcements aswell as how they could assist your business with things, but certainly not limited to the to those sessions. After digesting through a key note or two – quite interesting topics were discovered and the fact that you could interact with HP in so many ways were amazing.

One thing was especially appreciated; Their cloud-concepts were not as unclear. Usually cloud is a concept vaguely referring to a change of a business model where you are traditionally using an outside service providing the hands and feet of IT in a standardized process. There are several services out there – working in quite few different ways. However, HP admitted that they had some offerings, others were just started and some were just concepts beeing discussed. The good part about this is that we got to see demos (yeah, woho!) of products that was in progress.

However, some interesting topics that was gathered;

HP ProLiant Server and BladeSystem Management Packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

The HP StorageWorks Management Packs for Microsoft Systems Center 2007

HP Client Catalog for Microsoft System Center Products

Application Transformation Solutions << These consultants blew me away !

Looking into the HP Application Transformation Solutions were quite amazing in many ways as they provided tools, know-how and processes. Having discussions with those guys provided great new insights and really challenged ones mindset in many ways.

Favourite speaker? Prith Banerjee was giving a key note that was electric and really got everyone excited about all the topics he brought up! Prith is responsible for HP Labs – which is their research department look at future use of any type of technology.

After three days of non-stop discussing from early morning till late evening – I am kinda tired and will definitely appreciate my own bed at home. Btw, Vienna Airport has free WiFi!

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect

Posted by nickekallen on November 28, 2011 in App-V 0 Comment

This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

xxxxxxx-xxxxxx2C-000036B1

This error indicates that certain components that needs to available to the application are not when running a virtualized application within App-V.

Incase installing one of the above does not remedy the problem – you can manually setup the missing sidebyside-component. Review the error
message from the Application Log – see example below;

Log Name:      Application

Source:        SideBySide

Level:         Error

Keywords:      Classic

Description:

Activation context generation failed for “Q:\ecowin.002\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\EcoWin\EcoWin.exe”. Dependent Assembly Vinga.vscom90u,processorArchitecture=”X86″,publicKeyToken=”e520fe831c9439c8″,type=”Win32″,version=”1.0.0.55″ could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

Locate the referenced file within the package and copy it to the same folder as the application.
Create the first manifest to tell Ecowin where it should get its above Vinga.vscom90u (named ecowin.exe.manifest)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<security>
<requestedPrivileges>
<requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false"></requestedExecutionLevel>
</requestedPrivileges>
</security>
</trustInfo>
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Vinga.vscom90u" version="1.0.0.55" processorArchitecture="x86"></assemblyIdentity>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
</assembly>

The second manifest telling Ecowin where VScom90u.dll was (named Vinga.vscom90u.manifest)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<noInheritable />
<assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Vinga.vscom90u" publicKeyToken="e520fe831c9439c8" version="1.0.0.55" processorArchitecture="x86" />
<file name="vscom90u.dll" />
</assembly>

The version, name, type, processorArchitecture, publicKeyToken are all picked up from the original error message.

European App-V User Group – 18 Nov, 2011

Posted by nickekallen on November 27, 2011 in App-V, European App-V User Group 0 Comment

Presentations PDFs will be available at; www.appvug.com

Presenters were;
Impact AppVirt on VDI (Project VRC phase IV) by Ruben Spruijt
Troubleshooting App-V & Common Issues by Madelinde Walraven and Sebastian Gernert
Future: App-V in Configuration Manager 2012 by Ment van der Plas
Heavy Duty Sequencing by Nicke Källén
Server App-V by Jurjen van Leeuwen
Dynamic Suite Composition: Boon or Bane? by Falko Gräfe
User State Virtualization: Do I still need it when using App-V? by Rodney Medina
Top 10 Myths around App-V (all)

Shot and cut by Olle Källén, best quality available at his Vimeo account