The main goal of the resource toolkit is to enable IT administrators to unlock the full potential of the recently released App-V 4.5.

This release consists of the following tools:

· App-V Application Listing Tool - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5DA48313-CF6D-445D-AF97-594F194AC759&displaylang=en.

The App-V Application Listing Tool (ListVApps) is a tool which lists all the virtual processes that are running at a specific time on a specific computer. You can use the tool to get information about the priority and owner of each process, the size of its virtual memory, its session identifier and processing time. More info can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/11/07/app-v-4-5-resource-kit-app-v-application-listing-tool.aspx 

· Application Virtualization SFT Parser Tool - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E5A7DB27-304B-4CD1-9C80-7BA5FDAEA97F&displaylang=en

You can use the Application Virtualization SFT Info utility to extract the following information from SFT files:

• Validation of SFT files—Process corrupted SFT files, and recover information from corrupted SFT files.
• XML export of contents of SFT—Export the contents of an existing SFT file. You can evaluate SFT segments or SFT metadata and construct a textual tree view of all file information SFT file.
• Listing of all of the files in the SFT—Identify and print the files contained in the SFT with their full paths. This is a good method to quickly identify the contents of a package.
• Statistics about properties of the SFT metadata—Identify statistical information, such the largest file contained in a package. This can be very useful for identifying packages that are too large in size and are causing issues loading on the client.
• Get relevant information on a file in the package—Display size, timestamps, attributes, and version information associated with the package.
• Ability to skip processing of file data if using functionality that requires only the metadata—Allows working with very large packages quickly.

More info can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/11/05/app-v-4-5-resource-kit-application-virtualization-sft-parser-tool.aspx 

· Application Virtualization Client Log Parser Utility - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=72876C60-3A87-4705-B722-F73EB56219BF&displaylang=en

You can use the fields and values contained in the output file to filter information obtained from the log files. The output file generated by the application log parser utility contains the following fields: System, OS, Build, Date, Time, Module, Log Level, hApp, App, User, Thread, and Message. The information contained in the output file can also be imported into Microsoft Excel for subsequent evaluation. This log parser simplifies the task of looking through log files, being able to filter by log level, build report, launch failures, mini-dumps, minimum disconnected operation mode entries and more. Afterwards, the appropriate party can import the data for analysis and/or utilization.

· Application Virtualization Cache Resizing Tool - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5E7089FA-C6AB-4150-8562-3B5BC14CD881&displaylang=en

The App-V client cache tool (AppVCacheSize) allows administrators to increase the Microsoft Application Virtualization client cache size through a scriptable command line interface. AppVCacheSize uses the specified parameters to configure the desired cache size, as well as toggle between using a free disk space threshold or set a maximum cache size. More info can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/11/04/app-v-4-5-resource-kit-application-virtualization-cache-resizing-tool.aspx

· Application Virtualization Dynamic Suite Composition Tool - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DAA898DF-455F-438A-AA2A-421F05894098&displaylang=en

Dynamic suite composition is a Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) feature that enables applications to be sequenced separately from the plug-ins and middleware applications they rely on, while still being able to utilize the virtual resources such as file system and registry settings, in the virtual environment. The packages will run and interact with one another as if they were all installed locally on a computer. The primary package will also assume the secondary packages entire virtual environment, including the virtual file system. More info can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/softgrid/archive/2008/11/03/application-virtualization-dynamic-suite-composition-tool.aspx 

Not only microsoft is publishing tools to facilitate the administrators. A tool called the “App-V Ping tool” is available as a free download at http://www.immidio.com/. Look for the Immidio Resourse Kit if you can’t find it. The tool can be used to check if an Microsoft Application Virtualization Management and/or Streaming server is available from a Client-Side perspective.