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Gathering app usage requirements

This article describes the process of gathering app usage requirements from each business group in order to implement application control policies by using AppLocker.

Determining app usage

For each business group, determine the following information:

  • The complete list of apps used, including different versions of an app.
  • The full installation path of the app.
  • The publisher and signed status of each app.
  • The type of requirement the business groups set for each app, such as business critical, business productivity, optional, or personal. It might also be helpful during this effort to identify which apps are supported or unsupported by your IT department, or supported by others outside your control.

How to perform the app usage assessment

You might already have a method in place to understand app usage for each business group. You need to use this information to help create your AppLocker rule collection. AppLocker includes the Automatically Generate Rules wizard and the Audit only enforcement configuration to assist you with planning and creating your rule collection.

Application inventory methods

Using the Automatically Generate Rules wizard quickly creates rules for the applications you specify. The wizard is designed specifically to build a rule collection. You can use the Local Security Policy snap-in to view and edit the rules. This method is useful when creating rules from a reference computer and when creating and evaluating AppLocker policies in a testing environment. However, it does require that the files be accessible on the reference computer or through a network drive. This requirement might mean more work in setting up the reference computer and determining a maintenance policy for that computer.

Using the Audit only enforcement method permits you to view the logs because it collects information about every process on the computers receiving the Group Policy Object (GPO). Therefore, you can evaluate the possible effects of enforcement on computers in a business group. AppLocker includes Windows PowerShell cmdlets that you can use to analyze the events from the event log and cmdlets to create rules. However, when you use Group Policy to deploy to several computers, a means to collect events in a central location is important for manageability. Because AppLocker logs information about files that users or other processes start on a computer, you could miss creating some rules initially. Therefore, you should continue your evaluation until you can verify that all required applications that are allowed to run are accessed successfully.

Tip

If you run Application Verifier against a custom application with any AppLocker policies enabled, it might prevent the application from running. You should either disable Application Verifier or AppLocker.

You can create an inventory of Packaged apps on a device by using two methods: the Get-AppxPackage Windows PowerShell cmdlet or the AppLocker console.

The following articles describe how to perform each method:

Prerequisites to completing the inventory

Identify the business group and each organizational unit (OU) within that group for application control policies. In addition, you should identify whether or not AppLocker is the most appropriate solution for these policies. For info about these steps, see the following articles:

Next steps

Identify and develop the list of apps. Record the name of the app, its publisher, and how critical the application is. Record the installation path of the apps. For more information, see Document your app list.

After you create the list of apps, the next step is to identify the rules to create so these apps can run. This information can be added to the table under columns labeled:

  • Use default rule or define new rule condition
  • Allow or deny
  • GPO name

For guidance, see the following articles: