App-V 5.0 SP2 and pending removal / update

A new feature, that is only announced on Thamim Karims blog, is the pending state of the App-V 5.0 SP2 client. Previously I covered the new virtual extensions, the user interface removal and new config possibilities (packagestoreaccesscontrol, enable publishing refresh ux) as some great new possibilities for App-V that will greatly benefit everyone, however something that snuck upon is very late (as in when it went public) is the pending state.

So, what is a pending state for publish and unpublish?

Let’s review the output of PowerShell for our packages;


Get-AppvClientPackage -Name Microsoft*

PackageId            : a4b24f80-7fda-4735-86a2-6399fb77b6eb
VersionId            : 7ca886ab-66b9-45d5-b179-ae47ad71ff47
Name                 : Microsoft Frontpage 2003
Version              : 0.0.0.1
Path                 : D:\storage\MSApp-V_5.0 SP2\Microsoft Frontpage 2003\Microsoft Frontpage 2003.appv
IsPublishedToUser    : False
UserPending          : False
IsPublishedGlobally  : True
GlobalPending        : False
InUse                : False
InUseByCurrentUser   : False
PackageSize          : 364618049
PercentLoaded        : 100
IsLoading            : False
HasAssetIntelligence : True

As you can see there is the UserPending and the GlobalPending. I don’t think they relate to this, but they are an indication that something is up. A few other topics that are worth covering is the InUseByCurrentUser and InUse. These two (if set to True) gives the admin an inkling if the package is locked and can therefore not be updated – very frustrating if you want to push out updates.

Once we use the application – the state of those two values toggle.

image

In a pre-SP2 world, this would stop the package from beeing updated and we would simply have to force our users to close the application.

In a post-SP2 world, the App-V client gives us only a warning and an indicator that something will happen at a later stage;


Get-AppvClientPackage -Name Microsoft* | Unpublish-AppvClientPackage -Global
Unpublish-AppvClientPackage : The target package is currently in use. The Unpublish operation will be attempted at a later time
Operation attempted: Unpublish AppV Package.
AppV Warning Code: 0200000515.
Please consult AppV Client Event Log for more details.
At line:1 char:42
+ Get-AppvClientPackage -Name Microsoft* | Unpublish-AppvClientPackage -Global
+                                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidResult: (:) [Unpublish-AppvClientPackage], ClientWarning
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnpublishPackageWarning,Microsoft.AppV.AppvClientPowerShell.UnpublishAppvPackage

When is a later time?

It seems that if a package is published globally a later time means a reboot, and if the package is published to the user a later time means a logoff / logon operation.

Once a user logs on again, or if the computer is restarted the application is gone!

Since we get a warning, and not a success message, I would _assume_ that SCCM would need an update to handle this and that the native infrastructure can cope with this aswell.

FYI;

UserPending and GlobalPending didn’t toggle at all during my testing. No idea what they are used for?

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