KB: How to adjust the App-V v5 Publishing Server Refresh schedule

Here’s an new KB article we published that I think you’ll find helpful. This one explains how to adjust the refresh interval so you can speed it up. Why would you want to do this? The most common scenario is in a testing environment where you’re pushing a lot of changes and you want your test clients to check for updates very frequently.

You can read the article here:

2780177 - Publishing Servers are automatically removed from App-V v5 clients (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2780177)

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

Get the latest System Center news on Facebook and Twitter :

System Center All Up: https://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/
System Center – Configuration Manager Support Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/
System Center – Data Protection Manager Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/dpm/
System Center – Orchestrator Support Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
System Center – Operations Manager Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
System Center – Service Manager Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center – Virtual Machine Manager Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/scvmm

Windows Intune: https://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/
WSUS Support Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/sus/
The AD RMS blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/rmssupp/

App-V Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/appv/
MED-V Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/medv/
Server App-V Team blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv

The Forefront Endpoint Protection blog : https://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : https://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity-support/
The Forefront TMG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: https://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Hi Robbie, hi Mark, the product team is aware of this and the issues it can present. There aren't any details I can share but they are looking into it.

• Anonymous
  December 14, 2012
  We just received confirmation from Microsoft that there has been what we deem a major behavior change in App-V 5.0 from 4.x. With 4.x you could add a user to an AD group that is assigned to a virtual application then on the client machine the user could right click the App-V icon in the system tray and choose 'Refresh Applications' and the app's icon would appear immediately. You could also wait for the configured automatic refresh time and the app's icon would be added immediately. Same applied is you removed a user from an app group. This is no longer the case in App-V 5.0 as there is only one way to get app to be added or removed from client and that is to have them log off and log back on. Like many organizations, we have users who do not routinely log off/log on, they just lock their PC and unlock it. These people would never get a new app added or removed! In the 5.0 client there is an 'update' button, but all this does is apply any changes to an already assigned application such as if you changed the icon name, and that only occurs after the default 10 minute publishing server to management server refresh has occurred (although you can change this from 10 minutes to something lower).  My point is, in 4.6 you could add a user to a group and have them click refresh and the user had the app immediately or tell them to continue working normally and the new app icon would appear within an hour. We opened a case with premier support and they confirmed that this behavior change is expected, although the engineer sounded shocked that this was the case and he seemed surprised this had not come up yet. Also, I recall that at TechEd 2010 the App-V team demoed the beta version and one of the things the did was add a user to a group, click the then named refresh button and the app would appear. As I mentioned above, in the RTM build this button has been renamed to 'Update' but its not just a name change, but a complete change from 4.6 and the 5.0 beta 1.  I have been unable to find any documentation from Microsoft pointing out this major change in behavior, and the fact that a member of the App-V team that authored this KB was surprised to realize this change. Is it just me or is this a major issue with 5.0? This will  prevent us from migrating to 5.0. Any one know of a workaround or some other option?  If you want to see what I am talking about, log onto a machine with the 5.0 client, add yourself to an App-V 5.0 app group that you are not already a member of, do not log off and you will see that you never get the app on your client. What a few hours if you want, it won't show up. Lock the machine and unlock it. Still now new app.  Now log off and log back on and only then will you see the new app show up.  You can repeat this by now removing yourself from the group and waiting. The app will remain there until you log off/on.

• Anonymous
  January 31, 2013
  Hi Robbie, Did you hear anything more from Microsoft about this? If this remains the case it is just a no-go for AppV v5 . Cheers, Mark

• Anonymous
  July 11, 2014
  I'm having the same problem, and worse, if you make an update in the package .... it's a birth and the client machine does not remove the previous icon and or update the application

• Anonymous
  March 03, 2015
  an alternative I've found is to run a powershell script that syncs with the publishing server, then runs through each package and version in the C:programdataapp-v directory, and un-publishes an re-publishes the apps. I haven't had the time to build something that will only refresh items not in the app-v shortcuts directories, so this refreshes every icon in the directory.