Lib-V 6.0 released, with support for App-V 5.0 SP2 packages

Yes, it has taken a while but we are happy to announce that our premier App-V package SDK, Gridmetric Lib-V, has just been updated to new 6.0 release. This release adds full support for App-V 5.0 SP2 packages and yes, also changes in newest Hotfix 4 which added support for full write access to VFS files (at runtime, that is).

What’s new in 5.0 SP2 packages?

While mostly everything else stayed the same, Microsoft added four new Application Extensions to SP2 packages. These new extensions were:

• Shell extensions – while for the most requested thing has to be the extension to extend Explorer’s context menu with advanced menu structures, such as with ZIP tools, there’s actually number of other shell extensions that Windows implements: icon and image preview etc.
• Side-by-side DLL (SxS) – App-V 5.0 SP2 Sequencer captures Visual C++ runtime files that were installed during monitoring to the package and utilizes new SxS extension for this purpose.
• Internet Explorer browser plugins – Most all customizations via plug-in functionality to your IE are now carried in the package.
• ActiveX objects – Many advanced IE browser plugins actually implement themselves as ActiveX objects as well, such as embedded PDF viewing.

Now all these four types of application extensions can be safely processed with Lib-V and manipulated, and nothing gets dropped during encoding. As has been the case before, you can designate target format for the App-V package which dictates if newer features are used or not, allowing down- and upgrade packages format-wise.