XenApp: Application Streaming package creation

Streaming is the virtualization technique. It enables applications to be delivered to client devices and run in a protected, virtual environment.  Applications are managed in a centralized Application Hub, but are streamed to the client device and run in an isolation environment.  Applications become an on-demand service that is always available and up-to-date.

Streaming package needs to be created using the Streaming profiler. Once created successfully, it needs to be published for the user community

For explaining the package creation steps, I am creating streaming package for MS Word component of MS office. You can select any component of MS office or if you want, you can select all components.

Steps to create streaming package:

1. Create a shared location like {\\ServerName\\Apps\App_Profiles\} to store the final streaming packages.
2. Streaming package is created using Streaming Profiler. To run streaming profiler go to {All Programs > Citrix > Streaming Profiler} and click on Streaming Profiler. Following screen will appear:
3. Click on New Profile button, following screen will appear: Enter Profile name as “MSOffice – Word” and Click Next.
4. Select radio button for “Relaxed security” and click Next.
5. Some applications are designed to interface directly with other applications to provide interoperability and extended functionality. Use this page to set up Inter-Isolation Communication in which profiled applications can communicate on the client device. Click Browse to locate your other profiles. Select the profiles to add and use the buttons to rank the selected profiles in order of priority, top being the highest rank. If you don’t want to set up Inter-Isolation Communication, click Next.
6. Select the checkbox for the target operating system and languages, and click Next. You can also select multiple values.
7.   Select radio button for “Advanced Install” and click Next. Note: For simple install we can also select “Quick Install” option.
8. Select the radio button for “Run install program or command line script” and click Next.                                                             Note: As per the below screen, following options are available: 1) Run install program or command line script – This is required for first time installation or for multiple installation for the same package.                                                                                      2) Install IE plugins, web application, or online updated -  It is required, if you want to install IE plugins or Microsoft updates.  3) Select files and folders – This is required to change/update {addition and deletion of files are allowed} or to view the file/folder structure.                                                                     4) Edit Registry – This is required to edit the registry entry.         5) Continue with none of the above
9. Select the installation program / command line script and click Next. For EXE, just select the exe location. For MSI, use meiexec /i with MSI location.
10. Click on “Launch Installer” button as shown below             Application setup will start running. Follow all the setup steps and finish the application installation.
11. On application installation completion, following screen will appear, Select the radio button for “Finish Installations”.                                                                         Note: For additional actions, radio button for “Perform additional installations” can be selected.
12. Below screen will appear, containing the list of applications that are installed on this package. You can select application from this list and click on “Run” button to run that application. Some application requires some settings to be done after launching it for the first time. Those type of activities can be done using this screen.
13. Once the application is executed in above step for the first time, exit the application and its status will be changed to “Application Run” as shown below:
14. If you want to add/modify/delete any application, use the below screen: Click Next
15. You can sign the profile using below screen: Click Next
16. Profile summary will appear in the below screen. Click Finish to finish the profile creation.
17. On successful creation of profile, following main screen will appear. Click on the save button as shown in circle in below screenshot to save the profile:
18. After clicking save button, following screen will appear: Enter shared path as per step 1 and click “Save”. Profile will be saved to the shared location.
19. Resultant Folder structure of profile as saved at shared location:   Please note the files “MSOffice – Word.profile” and a cab file. *.profile file contains the information about application installed and  cab file contains all the files and folder with proper structure. To see all files and folder, rename it to *.zip and open it.

For installation time using streaming and traditional technique, refer to the link: 

http://mdaslam.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/installation-time-study-using-citrix-streaming-and-traditional-installation-techniques/

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