Capture an App Volumes Application

A standard capture workflow constitutes of starting a command-line capture program session, installing the application, and completing the capture session. To start and end the capture, appcapture.exe /new and appcapture.exe /end commands are used respectively. Different arguments such as /noauto, /a, /msi, /appproductid, and so on can be used with these commands.

When importing an application package to App Volumes Manager, you can associate the imported package with an existing application. To achieve this association, the /appproductid parameter must be used. This is an optional parameter.

After the capture completes, the program creates an application package in the .vhd and .vmdk (monolithic sparse) formats. In addition to the package file formats, the program also generates a .json file which has the metadata for the generated packages.

Note: If you want to deliver the application package to a Windows endpoint using device management tools such as Omnissa Workspace ONE UEM, Microsoft Intune, or Microsoft Configuration Manager (SCCM), then you can create a .msi format of the application package using the /msi parameter. The .msi format can be generated either during a new capture or for an application package which is already captured.

For more information about the appcapture.exe command-line arguments, see Windows Command-Line Arguments for the App Volumes Application Capture Command-Line Program. Alternately, you use appcapture.exe /help on the command line.

Prerequisites

• Ensure that the command-line capture program utility is installed at C:\Program Files\Omnissa\AppVolumes\Agent.
  For more information about how to install this program, see the Install App Volumes Application Capture Command-Line Program section in the Omnissa App Volumes Install Guide at Omnissa Product Documentation.

• Ensure that you start a new capture every time on a clean virtual machine.

• Ensure that the User Account Control (UAC) in Windows is deactivated.
  To deactivate UAC, see Microsoft Windows documentation.

• You must run the command-line capture program as an administrator.

• Ensure that you have downloaded the installer of the application that must be captured.

• At the time of packaging, ensure that you turn off the auto updates for the application which is getting captured.

• Ensure that the automatic Windows Updates are always turned off in the packaging machine.

• Ensure that you are aware of the command-line arguments that can be used with the appcapture.exe command.

Procedure

1. Take a snapshot of your virtual machine.

   You can revert to the snapshot after the capture session.

2. Open a command-line window.

3. Start a new capture session from the location where the command-line capture program is installed by using the following command:

   appcapture.exe /new package_name /appproductid custom_guid

   package_name - name of the application package that is captured

   custom_guid - indicates the GUID of the application to which the captured package must be associated

   1. To create the .msi application package format along with the .vhd and .vmdk, use the following command:
      
      appcapture.exe /new <package_name> /msi

   2. To generate the .msi format of an application package which is already captured, use the following command:
      
      appcapture.exe convert /file <path of the .vmdk or .vhd> /format MSI.

      If the .msi application package has on-demand data available, then by default the delivery type of the captured package is on-demand. Else, the delivery type is classic. This delivery type can be changed from on-demand to classic using a parameter at the time of delivering the package to the endpoints.

   With the appcapture.exe /new command, you can use the /appproductid and /upgradecode parameters. Using these parameters, GUIDs are obtained for identifying different application package versions which belong to the same application. For information about these two parameters, see Windows Command-Line Arguments for the App Volumes Application Capture Command-Line Program.

4. Install the application that you want to capture.

   Note: Any customization for the application must be done before finalizing the capture session.
   For example: When installing Zoom, the application might need customization such as room details, booking parameters, and so on. This customization must be done before finalizing the capture.

5. If your application install requires a virtual machine reboot, perform the reboot or wait for the reboot to complete.

   The command-line capture program session automatically restarts.

6. Finish the capture session by using the following command: appcapture.exe /end.

   Machine reboots and the command-line capture program session automatically restarts.

   The capture process is complete and the application package is created in the vhd and .vmdk (monolithic sparse) formats. If you have used the /msi parameter, then the .msi format is also created.

7. Ensure that the following outputs package_name.vhd, package_name_workstation.vmdk, and package_name.json are generated at C:\ProgramData\Omnissa\AppVolumes\Packages.

   Note: If you have used the /msi parameter, then the .msi file is also present at the same location as the .vhd, .vmdk, and .json files. For compressed packages more than 2 GB, the output includes the .msi file and a packageid.cab file. packageid indicates the application package ID. Both these files are required for installing as the .msi file size is limited to 2 GB.

8. Revert to the virtual machine's snapshot taken before you started the capture session.

What To Do Next

• /appproductid and /upgradecode parameters can also be used with the appcapture.exe update command. For information about the appcapture.exe update command, see Windows Command-Line Arguments for the App Volumes Application Capture Command-Line Program.

• Depending on your requirement, you can deliver the captured application packages as follows:

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure

• To import the *_workstation.vmdk package into App Volumes Manager, place the .vmdk and .json files on the App Volumes Manager server at <installation_directory>\CloudVolumes\Manager\ppv\packages, upload these files to the desired datastore from the Storage page in the admin UI by using Upload Templates, and follow the Import an Application to App Volumes procedure.

• To import the .vhd application package into App Volumes Manager, copy the package (including the .json file) to a file share and follow the Import an Application to App Volumes procedure.

After the package is successfully imported into App Volumes Manager, you can assign the application and deliver the package to the end users. If you have used the /appproductguid parameter when capturing the package, then the package is automatically associated with an existing application in App Volumes Manager.

Windows Endpoints

See Deliver App Volumes Applications to Windows Endpoints.