The other day I was troubleshooting a package add issue where I was running into a brick wall that turned out to be an awfully simple solution. While troubleshooting this, it came to me that I have not really gone into much depth as to what happens during an AddPackage or a ConfigurePackage operation in App-V 5. I mention both because they both refer to the process of laying down the necessary assets that will be needed for publishing and streaming the application. Whether we are adding the package manually using PowerShell (Add-AppvClientPackage) deploying through Config Manager, or synchronizing with the App-V Publishing Server, the methodology is the same.

You’ll notice that all of the critical XML files extracted from the APPV file will be fully cached in the base package directory even in shared content store mode. You’ll also notice the registry hive will be downloaded as well. The base catalog assets will be laid down as well in the packages catalog root. Finally, all of the assets required for publishing (under FB0 Feature Block 0 – the publishing block – mostly icons) will be cached. This is why even if Shared Content Store mode, all of these small files are usually fully populated files and not just sparse files. All of this before the actual publishing events regardless of targeting. If all goes well, you will see a value of 1 under the PackageState registry value for each package under:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Client\Streaming]\Packages\<GUID>\<GUID>

The values possible for PackageState are:

1 – Package has been staged/configured successfully.

2 – Package has been deleted.

3 – The package has been fully mounted (loaded) into the App-V cache.

0 or anything else (HRESULT) – means a problem has occurred.

If you are running in Shared Content Store mode, the only files that will be fully cached into the sparse files will be publishing assets and probably most of the initial executables for the applications. Prior to streaming, this will also be the case with the default stream-to-disk scenario. Once the package has been streamed down, the files will be fully populated. Note that EVEN in Shared Content Store mode, if you pre-cache the application using Mount-AppVClientPackage all of the files and assets will be fully streamed to the disk or cached for that particular package.

Package Rollback

If for some reason, the AddPackage/ConfigurePackage event fails, the AppV client will try to clean up everything be it a script failure (where rollback action is selected) or an issue with the package itself. The PackageState will be 2. If the package cannot be removed because files are in use (which could be the case when scripts are involved) the package will be marked for pending deletion. Look for 0x8007012F which means “Pending Delete.” When the client service is restarted, the client will re-attempt the deletion of packages that are in the deleted state. Once the removal is successful, the registry entries for the package will be gone.

On Monday, Microsoft announced the private preview of Microsoft Interflow, a security and threat information exchange platform to help security professionals respond more quickly to threats.

Interflow uses industry specifications to create an automated, machine-readable feed of threat and security information that can be shared across industries and groups in near real-time, writes Jerry Bryant, Microsoft Security Response Center lead senior security strategist, in a blog post. The platform will also help reduce cost of defense by automating processes that are currently performed manually.

To learn more, head over to the Microsoft Security Response Center blog.

You might also be interested in:

· Free OneDrive storage space increases from 7 GB to 15 GB for individual users
· If big data is a symphony, Amir Netz is the conductor
· Find out how cities can tap into a $206 billion data dividend

Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff

With the Vivino Wine Scanner, you can snap a photo of any wine label and find prices, ratings and reviews from a community of more than 4.5 million wine lovers. 

Save the labels of wines you like for future reference and share your finds with friends. You’ll also get personalized wine recommendations, find the best-rated wines in nearby shops and like and comment on ratings.

Install the Vivino Wine Scanner from the Windows Phone Store.

You might also be interested in:

• Staff App Pick: From Smithsonian to Stuff, here are four magazine apps you can’t live without
• Lumia 1020 captures skateboarding in South Africa
• Free Ponyville from Nightmare Moon’s grasp in “MY LITTLE PONY – Friendship is Magic”

Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff

If you’re developing apps that showcase photos or that keep track of users’ movements, the Imaging SDK 1.2 and SensorCore SDK Beta can give you the right tools to make the most of those features.

Announced at Build 2014 as a beta, the fully fledged Imaging SDK 1.2, which is based on the same technology that powers apps like Creative Studio, Storyteller and Cinemagraph, is now available to download.

The latest release brings support for not only Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8.1, but also any Windows Phone 8.0 and Windows 8.1 device, from tablets to PCs. With Universal apps, developers can reuse code across platforms.

The new Lumia 630, Lumia 635 and Lumia 930 will all come equipped with SensorCore, which can be used to store your movements and make them available through apps like Bing Health & Fitness. The new SensorCore SDK beta opens up the possibility for other app developers to get in on the action. SensorCore can also be combined with GPS for the perfect workout partner.

Find out more about these SDKs on the Conversations blog.

You might also be interested in:

• Staff App Pick: From Smithsonian to Stuff, here are four magazine apps you can’t live without
• Lumia 1020 captures skateboarding in South Africa
• Uncork reviews, ratings and prices with the Vivino Wine Scanner on Windows Phone

Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff

In a recent Microsoft survey of 1,000 parents of children ages 5 to 16, half said they don’t know how to use online safety settings on the devices their children use. The other half know how – but haven’t done it yet. Now, Safer Families, makes it fast and easy to learn the settings they can control in a series of short videos about Xbox, Xbox 360, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Phone.

“The new Safer Families program is designed to help parents remove the feeling of ‘parental tech paralysis’ and switch on safety settings across their Microsoft technology and devices at home,” writes Kim Sanchez, director of Trustworthy Computing, in a blog post.

The video about parental controls for Xbox One, for example, is shown above. To learn more about all the videos, and Safer Families, head over to the Security & Tips Talk blog.

You might also be interested in:

· Free OneDrive storage space increases from 7 GB to 15 GB for individual users
· Microsoft Interflow, a security and threat information exchange platform, announced
· If big data is a symphony, Amir Netz is the conductor

Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff

To address some recurring questions about files and app data, Building Apps for Windows has posted a two-part series of answers that are relevant to Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.

In part 1, you’ll find answers to questions such as how app data differs from user data, how to store user credentials and what happens to roaming app data when an app is uninstalled.

In the second part, you’ll find answers to questions such as what file system locations an app can access programmatically without user consent, how users can give consent for other locations, and what StorageFile and StorageFolder objects represent.

Head over to Building Apps for Windows to find answers for those questions and more.

You might also be interested in:

• Staff App Pick: From Smithsonian to Stuff, here are four magazine apps you can’t live without
• Lumia 1020 captures skateboarding in South Africa
• Developers: Create Windows Phone apps with Imaging SDK 1.2 and SensorCore SDK Beta

Athima Chansanchai
Microsoft News Center Staff

Developers have until July 1 to let Microsoft know if they think their software shouldn’t be detected under the company’s new adware criteria, writes Michael Johnson on the Malware Protection Center blog.

Major changes to how adware will be assessed were announced a few months ago.

“This means that you have about a week to let us know if you think your program shouldn’t be detected,” Johnson writes.

Developers can make comments through the developer contact form. To read Johnson’s post, head over to the Malware Protection Center blog.

You might also be interested in:

· Free OneDrive storage space increases from 7 GB to 15 GB for individual users
· Microsoft Interflow, a security and threat information exchange platform, announced
· If big data is a symphony, Amir Netz is the conductor

Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff

Monday’s “Learning from cloud” blog series focuses on a question now facing every IT professional: “In a cloud first, mobile first world, how should my approach to infrastructure change?”

When thinking about the opportunity with hybrid cloud, “it shouldn’t just be about adding in cloud resources. There are fundamental strategy questions that need to be addressed in order to make the hybrid cloud model work for you,” writes the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Team.

Taking a big-picture view means looking at three things that can “make or break your approach to hybrid” – management, consistency and security.

To learn more about those issues in detail, read the “Learning from the cloud” series post on the Server & Cloud Blog.

You might also be interested in:

· Free OneDrive storage space increases from 7 GB to 15 GB for individual users
· Microsoft Interflow, a security and threat information exchange platform, announced
· If big data is a symphony, Amir Netz is the conductor

Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff

Summary: Learn how to use Windows PowerShell to easily capitalize a string.

 How can I use Window PowerShell to make all the text upper case so it is all in the
          same form prior to writing to a database?

 Use the ToUpper method from the String class:

"string".ToUpper()

Nicholas Kerr and his wife used to keep their shopping lists on sticky notes in the kitchen, and “usually neither of us was near the list when either of us thought of something to add.” That problem and more got solved by creating a To Do list in OneNote.

“We always have our phones handy and can update a shared list wherever we are,” he writes on the Office Blogs. And because OneNote is free everywhere, and available across devices, “practically anyone” can take advantage it the same way Kerr and his wife do.

Another bonus: When Kerr finds a recipe on a website, “I can easily copy and paste all the ingredients and their quantities to our grocery list, so we no longer handwrite or print recipes to take to the store. Recently, my wife and I were shopping in a huge warehouse store, so we split up to save time. Because we both had the list in OneNote, we knew what the other person already had checked off the list.”

Head over to the Office Blogs to learn how to recreate this OneNote solution for yourself and share it with anyone.

You might also be interested in:

· Free OneDrive storage space increases from 7 GB to 15 GB for individual users
· “Safer Families” helps mom and dad learn parental settings for Xbox, Windows and Windows Phone
· If big data is a symphony, Amir Netz is the conductor

Suzanne Choney
Microsoft News Center Staff

Mainstream radio has a consistent rotation of the same artists and songs. Although we all love a hit record, let’s be honest – when you hear the same tune 10 times in a row, it can get really boring. So how can you find that next rising star and a new summer jam? Skype.

Skype is on a mission to help create more intimate experiences between fans and artists on the cusp of stardom. The Ones to Watch program promotes up and coming talent spanning multiple genres. Fans now have unprecedented access to hits from emerging artists before they hit the airwaves. You can even participate in group chats and get your questions answered by the artists themselves via video. How cool is that? 

Recently featured artists include Kid Ink, a rapper from Los Angeles, California; Cherub, an electro-pop group from Nashville, Tennessee; and Eric Hutchinson, a singer/songwriter from Washington, D.C. Dozens more artists are available on the site. You can also catch many of your favorites in a town near you.

Take a moment and find your new favorite artist at OnesToWatch.com/Skype.

Have you ever wished that you could take your virtual machines (VMs) and replicate them to a cloud service for disaster recovery purposes? Now you can with Microsoft Azure Site Recovery!

Azure Site Recovery (ASR) provides the capability to replicate Hyper-V VMs directly to Azure for recovery purposes.

There are two types of recovery that can be configured:

• On-premises to Azure protection—Replicate on-premise virtual machines located on Hyper-V host servers in VMM clouds to Azure. You configure and enable protection settings in Azure Site Recovery vaults. Virtual machine data is replicated from the on-premises Hyper-V server to Azure storage.
  

• On-premises to on-premises protection—Replicate virtual machines located on Hyper-V host servers in VMM clouds from one on-premises site to another. You configure and enable protection settings in Azure Site Recovery vaults. Virtual machine data is replicated from one on-premises Hyper-V server to another. Azure Site Recovery simply orchestrates the process. Learn about this scenario in Getting Started with Azure Site Recovery: On-Premises to On-Premises Protection.
  
  Source: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/hyper-v-recovery-manager-azure/

Read more about ASR here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/hyper-v-recovery-manager-azure/

AZURE SITE RECOVERY WALK-THROUGH

The following walks through how to use Azure to store and recover VM replicas. This service was formerly called Hyper-V Recovery Services and has been renamed to Azure Recovery Services.

System Requirements

• An Azure Subscription
• Management certificate
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V – used as VM host
• Gen 1, fixed disk .vhd VMs in Hyper-V
• Guest OS Windows Server 2008 or later

More details on requirements and planning are located here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn469074.aspx

Azure Site Recovery

If you haven’t used Azure Site Recovery (formerly Hyper-V Recovery Manager) from the Azure portal we’ll need to create a new Site Recovery Vault:

After the vault is created select it from the page:

From the drop-down on the main page, select “Between an on-premises site and Microsoft Azure”

Select DASHBOARD and install Hyper-V ASR agent on Hyper-V hosts and ASR Provider on the VMM server:

View of agent install wizard:

Once the agents are installed, in the Azure portal under RECOVERY SERVICES, select PROTECTED ITEMS and a CLOUD to protect.

Select “CONFIGURE PROTECTION SETTINGS”

Select a TARGET, there are two options VMM or Microsoft Azure, for the purposes of this post I’m selecting Microsoft Azure:

Select the options that best suits your recovery requirements and save:

The following will be displayed:

Once configuration is completed, we need to add virtual machines. Select and select a VM to protect:

Select the check mark and the initial replication will begin (depends on the setting previously configured for replication start time).

Here are the source and target properties, we can change the name and size of Azure VM. For example I added “-Azure” to the name (storage and network may also be configured as well):

Other tasks to complete are createing maps to networks, e.g. a subent that is part of either an Azure ExpressRoute connection or an Azure Site-to-Site VPN. If recovery occurs the VM will be accessable as it would if it were within your own datacenter (network mapping is not a requirement to use Azure Site Recovery).

The replication process will automatically enable Hyper-V recovery for the VM in System Center Virtual Machine Manager:

Once the VM is protected we can either FAILOVER the VM or TEST FAILOVER for a VM:

I chose to test a failover by selecting TEST FAILOVER. I’m also going to keep it isolated by not connecting the VM to a network:

Once the failover of the VM completed we can log onto the VM and run tests:

Note: If you want to RDP into the VM after failover occurs, you’ll need to open up port 3389 under ENDPOINTS.

I’m connecting to the test replica VM using RDP:

Type in my credentials:

I’ve successfully logged into the test VM:

I can run my tests and complete the test by selecting COMPLETE TEST and typing in some notes:

The environment will now be cleaned up by removing the test VM from Azure:

FAILING OVER A VIRTUAL MACHINE

Now I’m going to failover a VM to Azure. On the virtual machines page select FAILOVER:

Select Planned Failover or Unplanned Failover:

For the purposes of this post I’m selecting Unplanned Failover.

The job will sync data, pause the VM in Virtual Machine Manager and start a new instance of the VM in Azure:

RECOVERY PLANS

I walked through manually managing Azure Site Recovery, however recovery can be automated by creating Recovery Plans.

Select RECOVERY PLANS at the top of the page:

Specify the recovery plan parameters:

Select the VMs to include in the recovery plan and select the check mark to complete:

A recovery plan is going to run a sequence of actions defined by you to recover a VM either in Azure or to another data center such as a DR site.

SUMMARY

I’ve walked through creating a site recovery vault, configured Azure Site Recovery from datacenter to Azure, tested and failed over a virtual machine to Azure, and looked at recovery plans for automating VM recovery in Azure.

Azure Site Recovery is a unique offering from Microsoft and I encourage you to start planning your disaster recovery site within Azure today!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Azure Site Recovery Planning and Deployment Guides: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn440569.aspx

There are two upcoming opportunities for you to learn how to have effective Office 365 conversations with your customers. Drumbeat is a partner sales readiness program for Office 365 that provides training and resources to Sales Professionals and Presales Technical Professionals serving customers in the upper midmarket and the enterprise. These workshops provide in-depth training to help you understand how to make money with Office 365, how to demo it, what licensing offers are available, and what you should know about deployment.

If you can’t attend either of these sessions, the Virtual Drumbeat will be available on-demand after June 25. You can register to access this content through the same registration link.

Register:

June 25 at 9:00AM Pacific Time – Virtual Drumbeat

July 13 at 12:00PM Eastern Time – in Washington, DC

These are some real cool apps that you should check out!

· A&E History - A&E History with Pawn Stars. Swamp People. American Pickers. Ax Men. Now you can watch your favorite HISTORY shows wherever and whenever you want, right on your Windows Device. Watch full episodes and clips at http://aka.ms/history_w8 and let the publishers know your feedback by rating and reviewing the app in store.·

Sponsorhub - SponsorHub is a data company that allows brands and agencies to efficiently quantify the impacts of their sponsorships. By leveraging our proprietary big data platform and metrics, our clients optimize their marketing spend on sponsorship rights and activation tactics to deliver best-in-class sponsorship portfolio value.

· tvtag WP - tvtag is a second screen app that synchronizes content and audience reaction with TV moments. Check in to your favorite shows, earn digital stickers, and experience TV with others like never before. Download, rate and review the app at : http://aka.ms/tvtag_wp

Don't forget to RATE the app, tell us what you think!

· HOW TO RATE A WINDOWS APP: Swipe in from the right as the app is running, go to Settings, and tap Rate and Review.

· HOW TO RATE A WINDOWS PHONE APP: From your app list, tap and hold on the app, and then tap Rate and Review.

Many people talk about writing a children’s book, but few actually follow through. And of those who do complete one, fewer still find an audience for their work. Even the majority of children’s books backed by large publishers never catch on.

Hello,

In an effort to provide additional protection for customers, we are releasing an update that further enhances the security of Windows Update / Microsoft Update (WU/MU) Client.

Improvements include further hardening of infrastructure used by WU/MU client and a more secure communication channel between WU/MU Client and Service.

The update is applicable to Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1, Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows Server 2012 and the rollout will begin today. Similar to past updates, this update will be automatically installed if Automatic Updates is turned ON, either set to automatically install updates or notify to download/install updates.

Details on the changes to the WU/MU client can be found at KB 2887535.

As with past updates, this update will not change your current Windows Update or Automatic Updates settings. Anytime Windows Update (or Automatic Updates) is turned ON, either set to automatically install updates or notify to download/install updates, Windows Update will take care of updating itself.

It's important to keep your PC up to date with the latest updates to keep your PC running smoothly and safely.

WU/MU Team