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About the connection group virtual environment

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Applies to:

  • Windows 10
  • Windows 11

How package priority is determined

The virtual environment and its current state are associated with the connection group, not with the individual packages. If you remove an App-V package from the connection group, the state that existed as part of the connection group won't migrate with the package.

If the same package is a part of two different connection groups, you have to indicate which connection group App-V should use. For example, you might have two packages in a connection group wherein each defines the same registry DWORD value.

The connection group that is used is based on the order in which a package appears inside the AppConnectionGroup XML document:

  • The first package has the highest precedence.
  • The second package has the second highest precedence.

Consider the following example section:

<appv:Packages>
  <appv:Package
    PackageId="A8731008-4523-4713-83A4-CD1363907160"
    VersionId="E889951B-7F30-418B-A69C-B37283BC0DB9"
  />
  <appv:Package
    PackageId="1DC709C8-309F-4AB4-BD47-F75926D04276"
    VersionId="01F1943B-C778-40AD-BFAD-AC34A695DF3C"
  />
  <appv:Package
    PackageId="04220DCA-EE77-42BE-A9F5-96FD8E8593F2"
    VersionId="E15EFFE9-043D-4C01-BC52-AD2BD1E8BAFA"
  />
</appv:Packages>

Assume that same DWORD value ABC (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\contoso\finapp\region) is defined in the first and third package.

For this example, the DWORD value definition would be as shown below:

  • Package 1 (A8731008-4523-4713-83A4-CD1363907160): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\contoso\finapp\region=5
  • Package 3 (04220DCA-EE77-42BE-A9F5-96FD8E8593F2): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\contoso\finapp\region=10

Since Package 1 appears first, the AppConnectionGroup's virtual environment will have the single DWORD value of 5 (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\contoso\finapp\region=5). This result means that the virtual applications in Package 1, Package 2, and Package 3 will all see the value 5 when they query for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\contoso\finapp\region.

Other virtual environment resources are resolved in a similar way, but usually collisions occur in the registry.

Merging identical package paths into one virtual directory in connection groups

If two or more packages in a connection group contain identical directory paths, the paths are merged into a single virtual directory inside the connection group's virtual environment. Merging these paths allows an application in one package to access files that are in a different package.

When you remove a package from a connection group, the removed package's applications can no longer access files from packages in the connection group it was removed from.

App-V looks up a file’s name in the connection group in the order App-V packages are listed in the connection group manifest file.

The following example shows the order and relationship of a file name lookup in a connection group for Package A and Package B.

Package A Package B
C:\Windows\System32 C:\Windows\System32
C:\AppTest C:\AppTest

When a virtualized application tries to find a specific file, App-V will search for a matching file path in Package A. If it doesn't find a matching path in Package A, it will then search Package B using the following mapping rules:

  • If a file named test.txt exists in the same virtual folder hierarchy in both application packages, App-V will use the first matching file.
  • If a file named bar.txt exists in the virtual folder hierarchy of one application package, but not in the other, App-V will use the first matching file.