How to virtualize SAP GUI with App-V
October 2011
Author
Hermann Daeubler, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft
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Walk-Through
Virtualization of SAP GUI
Figure 1 according to the official installation guide an App-V Users and an App-V
Administrators group was created on the domain controller
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Figure 2 the most important point was to create a physical drive with drive letter ‘Q’
before installing the App-V Sequencer. A physical drive with a drive letter
!= ‘Q’ caused some issues. Same thing using a symbolic link instead of a
physical drive
Figure 3 according to the installation guide a share was created to keep the App-V
packages. In this sample the share was named ‘AppVContent’. The SAP GUI
package was stored in the subdirectory ‘VSAPGUI’
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Figure 4 the two redist packages from the SAP GUI media were installed locally on
the App-V server as well as on the App-V client
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Figure 5 sequencing of the SAP GUI 7.20 was then pretty straight forward. It worked
fine just using the default Standard Application type
Figure 6 for installing SAP GUI under the control of the App-V Sequencer the program
‘SapGuiSetup.exe’ was used
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Figure 7 the package name was named ‘VSAPGUI’. The result of the sequencing
process was put under ‘Q:\VSAPGUI’. The latter directory was created by
the Sequencer
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Figure 8 once the SAP GUI setup starts one has to select all the components which are
required.
ATTENTION : BEX 3.x should NOT be selected here but put into a separate
package using a separate sequencing process ! Otherwise there will be issues
especially when using SAP GUI – Office integration at the same time
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Figure 9 don’t forget to specify the Q: drive path as the target directory during the
SAP GUI installation
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Figure 10 after finishing the SAP GUI installation one can run additional programs
or move on to the next step in the sequencing process
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Figure 11 in this sample the latest patch level 8 for SAP GUI was installed after the
initial SAP GUI installation. The exe to install the patch was downloaded
before and copied to the folder which includes the general SAP GUI
installers
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Figure 12 once the Front-End Patch Wizard starts just follow the dialog as usual
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Figure 13 after installing the patch there was no need for further tasks and therefore
the check-box was marked to tell the App-V Sequencer to move on
Figure 14 under the ‘Configure Software’ section it’s strongly recommended to run the
programs which the Sequencer recognized during the installation process
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Figure 15 in this sample SAP Logon was run to enter the connection to an existing
SAP system and to check if SAP GUI starts as expected
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Figure 16 in addition transaction SE38 was used to look for existing ABAP reports
starting with “SAPRDEMO”. One of them is
“SAPRDEMOEXCELINTEGRATION2” which is a test for SAP GUI – Excel
integration
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Figure 17 after starting the ABAP report click on the left icon below the report title and
select the document in the middle
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Figure 18 for the test scenario Office 2010 was installed locally on the App-V server as
well as on the App-V client. The result of the Excel integration test should
then look like this screenshot. This is a very first check if the Office
integration between a local Office installation and the virtualized SAP GUI
works fine
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Figure 19 the same way a Word integration test was started
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Figure 20 like before with Excel - the Word 2010 test also finished successfully
Figure 21 after the test runs it’s necessary to select the “customize” option in the
sequencing process
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Figure 22 after the installation some of the application path names still point to the C
drive. These should be manually changed to the corresponding Q drive path.
This isn’t necessary for applications which are installed locally like Office in
this sample
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Figure 23 one example for changing the application path is the SapStart.exe. The left
side of the screenshot shows where the .exe file can be found on the Q drive
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Figure 24 another path name change for SAPActiveXL
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Figure 25 the path for SapLogon is in fact a path to a .s8l file. This extension will
trigger an application launcher which will then start the SAP Logon exe
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Figure 26 the sequencing process didn’t capture SAP Logon Pad. Therefore it was
added manually. The corresponding path is the same directory where the
SAP Logon .s8l file can be found
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Figure 27 the “Streaming” section gives then again a possibility to run the programs in
order for optimizing the packages. This screenshot shows that saplogon pad
was started
Figure 28 the “Target OS” option allows to specify on which operating systems the
package will be allowed to run
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Figure 29 IMPORTANT : under “Create Package” make sure that the first item is
selected which will allow further modifications of the package
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Figure 30 now the package editor started. Standard settings were used to define the
server which will stream the App-V package. In the sample the App-V
Sequencer as well as the App-V Management console were installed on the
same server
Figure 31 under the OSD tab it was absolutely necessary to set the
LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED flag to ‘TRUE’ for all the main programs
in the SAP GUI package. Otherwise issues came up especially with the
Office integration
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Figure 32 then the package was saved in the ‘VSAPGUI’ folder on the AppVContent
share which has to be accessible from the App-V client
Figure 33 in the App-V Management Console make sure that the path to the Content
Share is set correctly before importing applications
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Figure 34 once the sequencing process is done the SAP GUI applications can be
imported into the App-V Management Console
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Figure 35 it’s necessary to select a few settings when importing the applications
from the Sequencer package. Again only some standard settings were set
for the sample
Figure 36 in the test environment there was a pre-selection of the publishing target.
It was necessary though to click on these checkmarks again
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Figure 37 under ‘Access Permissions’ the AppV Users group was added. This was the
group which was initially created on the domain controller. All domain users
belonging to this group will then be allowed to work the App-V package
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Figure 38 for some applications which were captured by the App-V Sequencer it
makes no sense to publish them to the client desktop. After importing the
whole package one can deselect the publishing checkmarks for specific
programs
Figure 39 under ‘File Type Associations’ one can find the entry for the .s8l extension
which was mentioned before. The properties show that the SAP Application
Launcher will be triggered. This is the program which will then start the SAP
Logon .exe file
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Figure 40 on the client side one has to enter the data for the App-V server where the
App-V Management Console sits to stream down the applications
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Figure 41 after a refresh the Virtualization Client should show all the applications which
were imported before on the App-V server
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Figure 42 the redist exe from the SAP GUI media were installed locally on the client.
Otherwise one won’t see anything from SAP under ‘Programs and Features’.
The SAP GUI programs will run in their virtual environment. There is no local
installation of SAP GUI
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Figure 43 also under “program files” you won’t see a SAP folder. As mentioned above the SAP GUI will be streamed down to the client from the App-V server
without any local SAP GUI installation on the client
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Figure 44 the Office integration between the virtualized SAP GUI and the local Office
2010 installation also works fine on the client
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Virtualization of BEX Analyzer 7
Figure 45 to avoid issues with interference between SAP GUI Office integration and
BEX Analyzer it was absolutely necessary to create a separate package for
BEX 7. As it was easier to test the access to a SAP BW system during the
sequencing process SAP Logon was installed too. Later on it was removed
again
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Figure 46 using SetupAll.exe SAP Logon was selected and Business Explorer
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Figure 47 as a separate package was created also a new package name and directory
name was used : ‘VBEX7’
Figure 48 a very simple BW query was created using BEX Query Designer to verify if
BEX 7 works correctly
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Figure 49 first test within the App-V Sequencer was to start SAP GUI and run the App-V
test query via transaction RSRT2
Figure 50 next test was to set the Query Display to “BEX Analyzer”
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Figure 51 the ‘BEX Analyzer’ test via RSRT2 worked fine
Figure 52 finally the BEX 7 Analyzer ( Excel plugin ) was run successfully using the
same App-V test query as before
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Figure 53 contrary to SAP GUI it was absolutely necessary to set the
LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED flag to ‘FALSE’
Figure 54 at the end after removing the SAP Logon only the four major BEX 7
applications were imported into the App-V Management Console
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Figure 55 in some cases the shortcut icons didn’t look correct after importing the
package into the App-V management console. But it was possible to fix it by
browsing for the appropriate icon via the properties dialog
Figure 56 on the client the first test via RSRT2 using the BEX display option worked ok
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Figure 57 also starting virtualized BEX 7 Analyzer working with the local Excel 2010
installation worked fine
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Figure 58 another critical test – first start the SAP GUI Excel integration test and leave
it open. Then try to start BEX 7 Analyzer. This is a challenge with BEX 3.5 as
described in the next chapter
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Figure 59 so to make BEX 7 and SAP GUI Office integration work seamlessly at the
same time it was necessary to create separate packages. But this anyway
makes sense as it allows to define different user groups which e.g. will get
access to SAP GUI only and don’t need BEX
Figure 60 looking at the whole list of applications or all the shortcut icons on the client
it’s not obvious that these applications come from different packages
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Virtualization of BEX Analyzer 3.5
Figure 61 repeating the sequencing steps the same way as for BEX 7 everything looks
correct at first glance with BEX 3.5. It starts as expected on the client and the
test query works fine too
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Figure 62 like before with BEX 7 let’s now start the SAP GUI Excel integration first and
leave the window open
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Figure 63 little surprise. Starting BEX 3.5 doesn’t work in case the SAP GUI Excel
integration is active. There is a major difference between BEX 3.5 and BEX 7.
BEX 3.5 always tries to re-use an existing Excel process while BEX 7 will
start a new one. There is some interference which couldn’t be solved so far.
The workaround is described on the remaining screenshots
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Figure 64 one workaround was the installation of BEX 3.5 as a “Add-on or Plug-in”
instead of a “Standard Application”
Figure 65 then the “parent program” had to be selected which was Excel in this case
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Figure 66 like before - SAP Logon was installed for easier connection to a BW system
and BEX 3.5
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Figure 67 installing BEX 3.5 as a plug-in will now include an Excel icon in the list. It’s
necessary for the workaround to run it under the “Customize->Streaming”
step in the sequencing process.
Leave the path to the Excel exe as it is. We need the C: drive path because
Office is installed locally and isn’t virtualized via App-V
Figure 68 once Excel started go to “Manage Excel Add-ins” under the “Add-Ins” item
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Figure 69 then manually browse for the BEX 3.5 Analyzer add-in named ‘sapbex’ and
add it to the list
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Figure 70 after adding the BEX 3.5 plug-in manually the App-V test query was run again
to double-check that it’s ok
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Figure 71 now clicking on the Excel icon on the client side allowed to run BEX 3.5 at
the same time as the SAP GUI Office integration
Figure 72 for the last test all three packages were imported into the App-V management
console : SAP GUI, BEX 3.5 and BEX 7
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Figure 73 here we go ! On the App-V client you can see SAP GUI Office integration,
BEX 3.5 and BEX 7 running at the same time
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