Limitations of version 4.x

• Microsoft Office plug-ins: Although one can sequence Microsoft Office plug-ins, it is not advised to sequence them due to many technical & usage issues. For example, in a situation where there are more than two plug-ins used by a user, if they are sequenced separately, then the user does not have control over which plug-in sequence starts when he opens a document. The only work around to resolve the issue is by creating a single suite or dynamic suite of all the plug-ins.
• Application Size: If the maximum client cache size is set to at least 4 GB (The max can be 64 GB), then the maximum size of application (sft file) which can be streamed on that machine is 4 GB. All applications that have an installed footprint greater than or equal to the max client size, set by the client, should not be sequenced. The maximum application size Softgrid can handle is 4GB, due to the use of the FAT32 file-system.^[5]
• Device Driver: App-V presently does not support sequencing of kernel-mode device drivers; thus any application that installs a device driver cannot be sequenced. The only exception to this is when the device driver can be pre-installed locally; in this case, the application is sequenced without the device driver.
• Shortcuts: Applications should have minimum of one shortcut. If no shortcuts are present, then the application should be sequenced in a suite along with the application that needs it. Internet Explorer plugins require a special shortcut to start the browser process under the virtualization layer.
• Middleware: Middleware applications may not be good candidates for sequencing as they may be runtime prerequisites for multiple applications. With later versions of App-V, they can be sequenced into a separate package that other virtual applications are linked to using a feature called Dynamic Suite Composition.^[6]
• Path hard coding: The application should not have folder/file path hard coded in the application itself. Some applications hard code the path of files in their executables rather than parameterising them. Configuration files such as ini, conf, txt etc. and the Registry are good places to look for application-specific settings. Failing that, a shim can be used to remediate the application where source code or an update is not available.
• Auto Update: Applications with automatic updates should not be sequenced if their update mechanism cannot be disabled. Sequenced applications usually fail to update. In addition, allowing auto-update leads to non compliance of application version.
• Services: Services can be started when an application starts and shuts down or when an application main executable terminates. Only user-mode services are suitable candidates for sequencing.
• COM+: Some applications which use COM+ might not work properly in a virtual environment.
• COM DLL: Some applications that use COM DLL surrogate virtualization, i.e. DLLs that run in Dllhost.exe, do not work properly in the Softgrid Environment.
• Licensing Policies: Applications with licensing enforcement tied to the machine, e.g. the license is tied to the system’s MAC address or harddisk serial number. This type of application should not be sequenced if the activation can not be done by the user at the first launch of sequenced application.
• Internet Explorer & Service Packs: Microsoft does not support sequencing of any version of Internet Explorer.
• Roaming Profiles: The default local cache location is %APPDATA%, this resides inside a folder that travels with roaming profiles, and will cause applications to fail often as files fail to sync using current best practices for roaming profiles in Windows Vista and Windows 7. Users will have to exclude the Softgrid Client folder from their syncing rules, or use an alternative location.
• LOCALAPPDATA: Administrators cannot set the local cache location to %LOCALAPPDATA% if they want user changes to the "bubble" filesystem and registry to be available to the application after it has closed. This little documented (although unverified and unconfirmed) bug may cause issues with Office and other applications that rely on user changes or configuration on first start up.