Co-existing packages for same application and version
Created: 10 Apr 2012 | 4 comments
I'm fairly new to this arena so please bare with me on this. Can some please advise what would happen if 2 vIE8 packages that had different GUIDS were installed on the same machine? Would the package that existed first always remain active? I'm thinking that if a new package was created and deployed it could cause issues if the previous package was not de-activated first?
Any advise would be appreciated.
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The way that the filter driver works means that the virtual file system is "overlaid" onto the physical file system. When the layer is active, looking at the filesystem with Explorer will show the virtual files as if they are part of the physical filesystem. If you have two essentially identical layers, it is difficult to see how you could differentiate one from another if both layers are active.
Whatg exactly are you trying to achieve? Maybe if you explain your requirement in detail, a working solution could be proposed by members of this forum.
If your issue has been solved, please use the "Mark as Solution" link on the most relevant thread.
Hi EdT, and thanks for responding.
My reason for raising this was because I can see that it could be possible for packages, lets say IE8, to be changed\created for different requirements\updates, then get deployed onto machines that already have a virtual IE8 package running. Like I mentioned, I'm new to SWV so still getting my head around certain things.
Many thanks
Hi there,
if both are same application, why would you create using 2 different GUIDs? But, let's say it happened to be so, then couple of attributes of the layer could help or hurt. If both layers are isolated from each other then they may not conflict with each other. But, since the OS can see it, the layer priority would play a role. Also, the order of activating may have some unpredictable behavior.
Now, from a best practice point of view, in most cases, it is better to create the 2nd version of the application with the previous version of the virtual app as the base. For example: IE8 (no patches or hot fixes) captured as version 1 of the virtual package would be the base / starting point for IE8 (patch or hot fix) as version 2. In this case, both versions maintain the same package / layer GUID.
If the virtual app is distributed thru' traditional means, the 2nd version is preferred to be distributed as .vpa (virtual patch archive) and can be done as inline upgrade / patch (i.e. overlay the changes in the same layer). If the virtual app is ditributed thru' streaming, xpf package can be used and when the 2nd version is provisioned only the differences are streamed down and applied as inline upgrade.
Hope this helps.
Hi Nirmal,
Many thanks for your response. The reason I asked this question is because we seem to be struggling with patching our IE versions. So we are creating new versions with the patches included.
Hopefully you'll be able to advise on the patching. We're trying to add the patch to the layer, for example the latest MS patch for IE, 'Windows6.1-KB2675157-x86.msu' but we just can't get it to add to the layer. Do you know of any documents that go through the patching process that we can use. We really do not want to keep creating new versions and re-deploying. You mentioned creating different versions in your first post, this sounds exactly what we need to do, so are there any process docs available for this.
Any information would be really appreciated.
Many thanks
Wadders
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