When App-V 5 was initially released there was new method introduced for automatically “sucking” any locally installed application into context of virtual package, RunVirtual client registry key. This method was then improved in App-V 5.0 SP3 to support user published packages in addition to global ones. One thing, however, that is difficult with this method is the fact it has to be written to client’s registry and thus is not easily manageable.

Fortunately, there seems to be workaround that works well: for both logically tying the RunVirtual entry to the CG rather than some specific package, as well as making sure that we can upgrade App-V 5 packages without constantly going back to all clients making modifications to the HKLM branch of the registry.