When the App-V Virtualization Management Server Service Fails to Start

I’ve been doing a few App-V demos recently. This has entailed building lots of App-V Management Servers back to back in a lab. It’s for that reason the whole App Virt Management Server Service not automatically starting even though it is set to automatically start has been brassing me off no end, it’s all about SQL being on the same server and the App-V Service starting before SQL, not usually an issue in a production environment with dedicated SQL Clusters but it was causing havoc in my lab. Something had to be done.

Ordinarily you’d set a DependOnService entry for the service in the registry but I thought I’d try the “Automatic (Delayed Start)” option on the service, a new feature with Windows 2008. Well, I’m happy to report it worked a treat.

Now the App-V server service starts everytime without fail, everyone’s a winner.

Packaging the App-V User Self Service Tool

The Login Consultants created a great little Freeware utility that by-passes the need for users to get involved with the App-V client MMC snap-in, which they probably can’t use anyway due to policies denying access to MMC’s. It allows users to repair, refresh and cache App-V applications, the latter being especially useful for laptop users.

App-V Self Service Tool

The tool comes as a group of files so I thought I’d package it up into an MSI to ease deployment issues. You can add your own corporate banner and amend the language in the App-VSelfSupportTool_settings.xml file in the package root directory.

You can download the package from the Login Consultants website, (registration required).

There is a readme.txt that details installation and configuration details.