App-V 4.x
App-V 4.x applications look very similar to all other application types, and in behavior they are also quite similar. But App-V applications are handled differently because of the way their virtualization works.
With normal (Generic or MSI) applications and also with Virtual Layer applications, Scense is able to use the normal way of starting applications. This means that Scense will simply start the application from the file system.
With App-V there’s an important difference. App-V applications are started within an isolated virtual environment.
Virtual Environment
Scense will first start the virtual environment and them Scense will run the ‘Application event’ within this virtual environment.
This approach makes it possible to handle App-V applications just like any other application which allows for configuration of App-V applications just like you would with other types of applications.
Streaming
App-V applications are streamed. This means that instead of installing the application before starting it, we will now have to wait for a part of the application being streamed to the workstation before we can start the application.
Usually the application can be started shortly after a few percentages of the application have been streamed. Scense will show the ‘Launching Virtual Environment’ message and a progress bar indicating the progress of the stream.
App-V 5
Microsoft made major changes with App-V 5 which result in slightly different Scense runtime behavior compared to App-V 4.x. With App-V 5 the administrator has a choice to simply start the App-V application without any extra steps, or he could start the entire Application Event inside the virtual environment of the App-V application (very similar to the way App-V 4 applications are started. Starting the Application Event inside the virtual environment will take a little more time.