AppsAnywhere Client (Win)

These release notes contain a high-level list of changes made to each version of the AppsAnywhere Windows Client.

Further information is available on Deploying AppsAnywhere Client .

Version 2.0.0 (Current Version)

Release Date: March 2023

Features

• Locally installed environment variable support

  • Support for environment variables in directory paths (e.g. %LocalAppData%) for Locally Installed delivery method launches

  • This allows the detection and launching of applications which are installed to variable paths via the Locally Installed delivery method (e.g. Microsoft Teams which is installed to %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Teams)

• System tray icon

  • The client now displays an icon in the system tray when running

  • Instead of displaying a dialog the client shows a busy indicator icon in the system tray icon when performing any of the following actions:

    • Starting up

      • Note: The HKLM\SOFTWARE\Software2\ShowInitializationSplash registry setting is now ignored and is a no-op in 2.0.0 and above

    • Validating

    • Checking for self-updates

    • Downloading and installing third-party client updates

  • Clicking the system tray icon displays a menu which shows the following:

    • When performing an action: the current action (e.g. “Validating…”)

      • Selecting this option will display a dialog showing the current operation (as was displayed pre-2.0)

    • The current client version

    • A ‘Quit’ option to close the client

      • The ‘Quit’ option is not available when the client is performing an action

  • A dialog will still be displayed when:

    • Launching an application

    • Applying a downloaded update

    • Running an update manually (by launching the updater application)

• Background third-party client updates

  • Updates for installed third-party clients configured to be pre-deployed are now applied in the background without displaying a dialog

    • The AppsAnywhere client checks for updates every 24 hours

    • If a third-party client is running, when the update is attempted, it will be skipped and retried after 1 hour

    • If a third-party client update fails, a dialog is still displayed and the update is retried after 1 hour

  • If a third-party client is not configured to be pre-deployed or has not been installed/updated yet, it will be installed on-demand if an application that requires it is launched from AppsAnywhere

• Validation performance improvements

  • Hardware detection is now done once on the startup of the client instead of on each validation

• Updated branding

  • Company name and copyright information updated to “AppsAnywhere Ltd”

  • Application author updated to “AppsAnywhere”

  • Refreshed application icon design

• Updated installation folder

  • Changed installation folder from Software2 to AppsAnywhere

    • < 2.0.0: %PROGRAMFILES%\Software2

    • >= 2.0.0: %PROGRAMFILES%\AppsAnywhere

• Other Changes

  • Central API URL is now configurable (used for testing/development purposes only)

Fixes

• AAWIN-228 - No log message in file when attempting to log a message longer than the maximum allowed length in Event Viewer

Version 1.6.0

Release Date: April 2022

Features

• Updated AppsAnywhere branding

• AAWIN-180 - Support for Hardware App Profiles

• AAWIN-189 - Support for Detection of Locally Installed Executables

• AAWIN-179 - Allow targeting of SCCM apps to users, not just machines

• AAWIN-175 - Move all translation strings into a single translations file

Fixes

• AAWIN-203 - Hardware ID changing between validation and launch

• AAWIN-178 - Minimum client version is not enforced during app launch

• AAWIN-174 - SCCM deployment fails when install behaviour is set to “install for user”

• AAWIN-171 - SCCM delivery method launch command does not work with Windows variables

• AAWIN-167 - Windows Firewall Rules seem to have an overly permissive scope

• AAWIN-144 - Third-party client downloads are being interrupted, causing installation to fail

• AAWIN-117 - Security vulnerability with user privileges

Version 1.5.1

Release Date: June 2021

Fixes

• AAWIN-146 - Unable to launch apps that require third-party clients if versioning information could not be retrieved

• AAWIN-157 - Windows Virtual Desktop client is not detected when machine is Azure AD joined and client is installed in user mode

• AAWIN-159 - Non-English versions of the Windows Virtual Desktop client are not detected

• AAWIN-169 - AppsAnywhere service becomes unresponsive in high-load and/or multi-user environments

Version 1.4.1

Release Date: December 2020

Fixes

• AAWIN-154 - Client setup executable is not correctly identifying 64-bit systems when CPU is AMD Ryzen

• AAWIN-150 - Client communications failing for some users in multi-user environments running FSLogix

Compatibility

• Due to the changes for AAWIN-107, 1.4.0 or greater client is REQUIRED for facilitating Parallels RAS launch requests from AppsAnywhere version 2.10 onwards

  • Customers should ensure that the 1.4.0 or greater client is deployed to all managed machines and set as the minimum version in client settings when using AppsAnywhere v2.10

Version 1.4.0

Release Date: November 2020

Features

• AAWIN-110 - Manage the installation and update of the Windows Virtual Desktop client, in accordance with the organisation's client settings

• AAWIN-138 - Gather information about the device's Windows Virtual Desktop configuration during validation

• AAWIN-139 - Ability to configure and launch the Windows Virtual Desktop client from a launch in AppsAnywhere

• AAWIN-140 - Detect when the client is running inside a Windows Virtual Desktop environment

• AAWIN-148 - Update the .NET version used by the client and have the auto-update process inform the user if they need to install an updated version

• AAWIN-124 - Add an option for disabling SSL certificate validation (for testing purposes), seen as valid SSL is now required by default

• AAWIN-107 - Implement more secure launch mechanism for Parallels RAS launches

Fixes

• AAWIN-47 - Client limited to TLS 1.0 by default

• AAWIN-100 / AAWIN-101 / AAWIN-102 - Security improvements in response to external pen testing

• AAWIN-105 - Client actions are delayed by up to two minutes if the .lck file is deleted for whatever reason

Compatibility

• Due to the changes for AAWIN-107, the 1.4.0 client is REQUIRED for facilitating Parallels RAS launch requests from AppsAnywhere version 2.10 onwards

  • Customers should ensure that the 1.4.0 client is deployed to all managed machines and set as the minimum version in client settings when using AppsAnywhere v2.10

Version 1.3.10

Release Date: 18th October 2019

Fixes

• AAWIN-98 - Validation errors due to incorrectly configured Scheduled Task

• AAWIN-99 - RequestClient unable to communicate with AppsAnywhere process due to ARP errors

  • The fix for this issue is disabled by default and activated by registry key. Only activate this key if you are seeing problems.

Version 1.3.9

Version 1.3.9 was created for the purpose of production testing a change that has since become the basis of version 1.3.10. 

Version 1.3.8

Release Date: 8^th July 2019

Features

• AAWIN-91/AAWIN-93 - Cloudpaging launch data properties captured for Analytics

Fixes

• AAWIN-92 - Cloudpaging now correctly launching first time following minimum version check

• AAWIN-94 - Improved handling of Citrix resources when Citrix Receiver is linked to multiple StoreFronts

Version 1.3.7

Release Date: 8^th April 2019

Features

• AAWIN-34 - Base URL now stored in registry on successful validation

• AAWIN-49 - Client now detects Cloudpaging player core installation

Fixes

• AAWIN-6   - DisablePreDeploy key available to prevent pre-deployment of 3^rd party clients

• AAWIN-10 - Improved validation handling of the SCCM client

• AAWIN-15 - Third party minimum version is now respected irrespective of pre-deploy status

• AAWIN-21 - Client now reports final state of SCCM deployment. Previously the first state change was logged so could incorrectly report failure

• AAWIN-48 - Client now ignores users in the Win32_User profile class with no home directory to successfully validate

• AAWIN-51 - Improved handling when launching different executables from the same Cloudpaging package

Version 1.3.6 - Application

Release Date: 30^th November 2018

Features

• AA-323 -  Support for delivery of Citrix resources through Citrix Receiver 

• AAWIN-1 -  MSI's should support upgrades

• AAWIN-2  - Use the AppsAnywhere client to launch Cloudpaging apps (to allow for multiple custom launch commands)

• AAWIN-8  - Locally deployed delivery method should be able to handle environment variables such as ‘%programfiles%’

Fixes

• AAWIN-11  - Post-upgrade splash screen for third party client does not offer a 'Reboot now' option when reboot is required

• AAWIN-19  - Client should respect device proxy settings

Version 1.3.5 - Application

Release Date: 30^th August 2018

Features

• AA-942 - Improve client detection to avoid having to ask the user if they have previously used AppsAnywhere

• AAWIN-4 - Improve initialization procedure to avoid race conditions and subsequent validation failures

• AAWIN-18 - Stop using UDP broadcast for internal communications as these are being blocked by F-Secure

Version 1.3.3 - Application

Release Date: 8^th May 2018

Features

• AA-752 - Added "Ignore SCCM" registry key for customers not using SCCM functionality

Fixes

• AA-756 - Security Update for Parallels Integration

• AA-759 - S2HubConfig.xml is missing dialog box being displayed by updater

Version 1.3.2 - Application

Release Date: 5^th March 2018

Features

• Additional Managed Windows Defender Exclusions (see article)

• Updated Cloudpaging Upgrade flags to more forceful upgrade policy (vomus > vamus)

• Added reporting of Laptop vs Desktop to enable AppsAnywhere 2.4 laptop detection functionality

Version 1.3.1 - Updater

Release Date: 5^th March 2018

Features

• Minor change to updater process to allow for future upgrades given new MSI product codes

Version 1.3.0 - Application

Release Date: 15^th February 2017

Features

• Managed Windows Defender Exclusions (see article)

Version 1.2.0 - Application

Released: 28^th July 2017

Features

• Parallels Client integration

Version 1.1.0 - Application

Released: 30^th June 2017

Features

• Detection and launch of locally installed apps

• Advanced third-party client management workflow

• VMware View client integration

Fixes

• Improved handling of SCCM deployment failures

• Changed self-update to run at a random time through the day to reduct server load

• Improvements to device identification to reduce errors on terminal servers

• Improvements to Cloudpaging launch workflow to account for apps already being deployed

• Clearer, more persuasive "Restart Now" screen

• Improvements to initialisation process to ensure AppsAnywhere is running in the right session

Version 1.0.7 - Application

Released: 13^th April 2017

Fixes

• Added more specificity to WMI queries as on some systems results returned without the property required

• Check for trailing slashes on protocol requests that could stop message decryption from succeeding

• Added a retry if generation of device ID fails (in case WMI service is busy) before reporting an error

Version 1.0.6 - Application

Released: 28^th March 2017

Features

• Management for entirely new update process

• Switched service communication from TCP ports to named pipes to stop client conflicting with other applications

Fixes

• Incorrect version number displayed in Programs and Features

Version 1.0.5 - Updater

Released: 28^th March 2017

Features

• Completely new update process that uses MSI re-install to allow for all elements of the client to be updated

Version 1.0.4 - Application

Released: 2^nd March 2017

Features

• Cloudpaging Player now launches by default as soon as an app is added to the player

• Registry key override for the above feature to revert back to AppsAnywhere splash screen only option

• Institution ID can now be included in client download filename to ensure it is present for the first launch of the application and subsequently be sent with the very first versioning check to ensure the correct Cloudpaging Player version is used for the given institution

• Splash screens are no longer system modal

Fixes

• Logged on username not reported in some terminal server environments

• Unsupported SCCM versions can cause validation failure

• Applications auto-run regardless of AppsAnywhere delivery method setting

• SVOROS and SVORUO registry keys being read from incorrect location in registry

• Cloudpaging Player not being correctly initialized following installation when dependencies exist

Version 1.0.3 - Application

Released: 25^th January 2017

Features

• Initial support for initiating deployment of SCCM applications

• Support for registry override to disable self-update functionality

• Removal of initialization screen by default with a registry override to make it display on startup

• Better handling of errors when the updater fails to contact the versioning API

• Better handling of errors contacting the versioning API on first run when Cloudpaging is already installed

• Client is now automatically initialized following a validation/launch request if it is not already running in the background

Version 1.0.2 - Updater

Released: 7^th December 2016

Features

• Fixed a problem with updater not being able to update parts of the main application because they are in use

• Updater now stops the core service and running processes before update and restarts them afterwards

Version 1.0.1 - Application

Released: 7^th December 2016

Features

• Added ability for the main application (on initialization) to update the self-update executable

• From this point, updates will be specific to either the main application or the updater

Version 1.0.0 - Initial Release

Released: 22^nd November 2016

Features

• Encrypted messaging with AppsAnywhere

• Browser protocol message handling

• AppsAnywhere session validation

• Cloudpaging Player installation management

• Cloudpaging application launch

• Cloudpaging application multi-launch (with dependencies)

• Self-update functionality