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Distributing with Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)

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I am a student staff member at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus.  This summer we are finally migrating from using Novell's network distribution system to Microsoft's Application Virtualization (App-V, formerly Softgrid).  We combine this with a network share for each student and FlexLM licensing to permit students to migrate from one lab computer to the next without loosing access to their files.

 

When attempting to install LabVIEW and SignalExpress, all applications seem to run perfectly fine on the sequencing machine.  However, when we try to execute the programs on a lab machine, SignalExpress fails to launch.  It states there is a configuration error and that reinstalling the software may solve the problem.  We have narrowed down the issue to SignalExpress alone (as we did an custom install and made sure the ONLY product selected was the SignalExpress and nothing else - no additional options nor any of the other programs available).

 

I am wondering if anyone has any success in distributing SignalExpress with App-V?

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Hi,

 

There is not really any documented case of Signal Express failing with any virtualization programs. You might want to check your installation of Signal Express on your main machine and see if it is activated properly under NI License Manager. 

 

Ipshita C.

National Instruments
Applications Engineer
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Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my original post.  During the act of sequencing the application launches just fine for packetization.  Once sequencing is completed on the XP VMWare image, that local shortcut works and the application launches just fine.

 

Then I save the content to the App-V server, import the package and shortcuts with the App-V management console, and then make it available to our domain's application testing user group.  I go down to one of our labs, log on, and attempt to launch the application.  This is when I get the configuration error.

 

I am unfamiliar with LabView (it is not one of the products I use), so perhaps you can confirm one of my suspicions.

 

Does SignalExpress install device drivers?

 

App-V is not capable of virtualizing device drivers.  Since LabView uses virtual instruments and does not require hardware devices drivers to be installed, it works fine with App-V (our student computer labs do not permit users to plug in devices beyond portable storage devices, so we don't need device drivers installed at all).  However, I noted when looking into SignalExpress it touts supporting hundreds of IO devices.  Does this software support input from virtual instruments from LabVIEW only?  Am I misinterpreting how the software works - does it work only with physical devices?

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Yes, Signal Express is meant for collecting IO from devices supported by National Instruments software, as in our data acquisiton cards. Is that what you meant to ask?

 

Ipshita C.

National Instruments
Applications Engineer
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I think that might answer my question.

 

Since SignalExpress installs hardware device drivers, and since App-V cannot virtualize hardware device drivers, this is probably the source of my error.  When running the application on the sequencing computer, the device drivers are probably installed properly to work with the OS.  However, when streaming the software to the lab computers, the device drivers have not been installed and thus a configuration error occurs.

 

Since there is no way to install SignalExpress without device drivers (for example, to take input from a virtual instrument only), the application is not compatable with App-V and needs to be installed in a different manner.

 

Does that sound correct?

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Accepted by topic author MDillenbeck

Hi,

 

Yes, that is very likely to be the explanation--you can get images of software but not of device drivers. 

 

Ipshita C.

National Instruments
Applications Engineer
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