Omnissa ThinApp: Troubleshooting when virtualized applications fail under specific user accounts (1008840)
Symptoms
A virtualized application works under the current user account, but fails to start, misbehaves, or displays an error message when launched under a different user account, including the case when the application is launched via the Run As command.
Resolution
A virtualized application generally works under different user accounts, including the case when the application is launched via the Run As command, if the natively installed application also works under the same conditions.
However, you may encounter a situation when:
- The virtualized application works under the current user account on all target machines; and
- The virtualized application does not work under another user account on all or some target machines; and
- Both virtualized and natively installed copies of the application work under the other user account on the capture machine; and
- It is not possible or convenient to install the application natively on the failing target machines to verify the native application’s behavior.
The problem is usually caused by one or more of the following conditions on the target machine:
- The other user account has insufficient privileges to run the virtualized application. For example, the user is denied access to the default sandbox location or the temporary files folder.
- The other user account has insufficient privileges to run natively installed prerequisite software.
- The natively installed prerequisite software is not properly configured to run under the other user account. For example, many third-party applications install themselves by default for the current user only, as opposed to all users on the machine. As a result, some of the application’s files or registry entries might be invisible to all but the current user. When launched under a different user account, such an application may fail in an unpredictable way.
Note that the offending prerequisite software may not necessarily directly relate to the virtualized application. Instead, it can be indirectly invoked by the system components used by the virtualized application. For example, a misconfigured third-party application that integrates with Windows Shell to handle custom file types or to add context menu items to Windows Explorer may prevent other virtualized and natively installed applications from being started.
The best way to verify that a particular issue does not relate to ThinApp is to install the application natively on the failing target machine and then run it under the other user account. Alternatively, to find the exact cause of the problem, you can create and compare the trace files for the normal and failing runs of the virtualized application.
Page last reviewed: May 2023
Next review due: November 2023
Related Information
Below is a list of the applications that are known to cause the symptoms described in this article:
- PowerArchiver by ConeXware, versions at least up to 11.03. The software installs itself a global Windows Shell extension, however, relies on the registry entries that are visible only to the user account used to install the software. As a result, PowerArchiver may prevent other virtualized and natively installed applications from being started under a different user account.