Managing Shortcuts the Easy Way with SVS

In our environment, besides regular software applications installed on computers, we have dozens of internal and external web applications that are used. To access these web applications, we must provision URL shortcuts on the desktops for staff. As the example in this article, we will assume that we must provide a desktop shortcut for staff to the Symantec Connect website.

The desktop shortcuts for web apps are deployed most of the time in the form of a link to Internet Explorer with the URL passed a parameter. We do this instead of deploying a .url internet shortcut so that the user always opens the web app in a new IE window.

In this case, the target of the shortcut would be:

"%PROGRAMFILES%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.symantec.com/connect

The Ways of Old

In the past, we might have used a script in Deployment Solution or Software Delivery to copy the "Symantec Connect.lnk" file directly to the "%ALLUSERSPROFILE\Desktop" folder. This method is effective to get the various web app shortcuts out there; however, there is one major challenge: when the URL of one of the shortcuts changes, how do you know which computers currently have the shortcuts so that you can update them?

One way we approached this in the past was to send a script out to every computer in the environment that replaced the shortcut if it existed on the All Users Desktop. It would go something like:

IF EXIST "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Desktop\Symantec Connect.lnk" XCOPY "path to updated shortcut\Symantec Connect.lnk" ""%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Desktop" /Y

This works, but there is a much easier and more versatile way than sending out a script to every single computer. That's where SVS comes in.

The SVS Way

1. To start, we use the SVS Admin tool to create an empty layer named "SymantecConnect_2Jun09".
   File > Create New Layer > Empty Layer > input Layer Name > Next > Finish

   

2. Begin editing the layer.
   Right-click layer name > Edit advanced layer properties

   

3. Drag and drop the "Symantec Connect.lnk" file into the Read-only [COMMONDESKTOP] folder.

   

   At this point, you would have a working layer that will put a desktop shortcut on the All Users Desktop, but we do a little more for some added SVS bonuses.

4. We want there to be an entry in Add Remove Programs for this layer. This gives the tech working on the computer some extra info if they happen to be looking there. More importantly, it gives us an easy way to do quick queries for the existence of this layer from Deployment Solution and an extra table for NS collections and reports.

   The Add Remove Programs entries are populated from the registry at HLKM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall, and the minimum info needed for an entry to show up there are the "DisplayName" and "UninstallString" strings. So, let's duplicate this in SVS. You could do this by importing a .reg file, or by creating each key and string manually.

   

5. Once you've finished created the 6 registry keys and 2 registry strings, you can close the Edit Layer window, reset the layer, and activate it. Once active, you will see the desktop shortcut is there, and, if you open Add / Remove Programs, it will be listed there as well.

   

   You can now export this layer into a .vsa and deploy it as needed.

Querying for Your Shortcut

In the Notification Server

One of the easiest ways to query for SVS packages, or VSPs, on computers is to build an NS collection or report. NS keeps this info in the "Inv_Software_Virtualization_Status" table and since we created an Add Remove Programs entry, it's also in the "Inv_AeX_OS_Add_Remove_Programs" table.

The example below shows a collection that uses a filter in the SVS table to display the computers that have the "SCMDowntime_25Mar09" VSP.

In Deployment Server

Since we added info for Add Remove Programs, we can also look for this in DS. It shows up on the properties of each computer here:

So, we can create a filter to get a list of all the computers in DS that have this VSP:

Conclusion

Once you are armed with this info, you have a reliable list of computers with your desktop shortcut VSP. You also have lots of flexibility in deciding how you would like to update the existing VSPs that are out there. Depending on how many computers are affected, or how quickly you have to do it, you might choose NS Software Delivery or DS to do it.

In our environment, we tidied up things and took all our desktop shortcuts for web apps and created VSPs for them. Then, we ran one-time scripts on all computers to look for the desktop shortcut for one of these web apps and replace them with the VSP. Once they were complete, we went from not knowing where these shortcuts were and how many, to knowing exactly how many are out there and being able to efficiently keep them up-to-date.