Aside from the Windows 10 Threshold release, Microsoft also published the long awaited windows store for business.Windows store for business (WSB) is an online tool that gives IT admins the ability to manage and deploy universal apps (Yes, that Metro name was so much more stylish!!) over Windows 10 desktop and phone. WSB has, of course, many other features like buying apps in bulk, assigning and re-assigning apps to corporate users with an Azure AD account. Creating a Private store, interacting with SCCM, the list goes on…
One of the many features I wanted to try is the offline app provisioning: with this one, you can download any app’s source from the store and inject them into your deployment image or WICD package. As a result, you’ll be able to deliver Windows 10 to your end user without asking them to go to a store before being fully ready!
The Gate to the cloud
While we will be focusing today on the offline part of WSB, you have to be aware that all other WSB features need an Azure AD tenant. The idea behind is to allow corporate users to purchase application with there Active directory account.This will probably drive a much wider adoption of Azure AD for the coming years! So you’ve been warned: Windows 10 is for sure an OS connected to the cloud, so the sooner you’ve learn about it the better it is.
Retrieving offline apps.
Go to the store for business and sign up with an Azure AD account or click sign in if you don’t have one.
Once in the store, go to the Settings menu and select Offline licensing.
tick the Show Offline licensed apps check box. You’re now ready for shopping !
Use the search bar to pick applications of your choice. For maximum efficiency, don’t forget to select Offline and PC in the Refine panel on the search result page:
Notice that the amount of available offline applications is actually very small; The full list can be reached here. I have no idea if that situation will change in a near future as Microsoft have not be very talkative for the moment…
After selecting an app, select Offline and click on Get the app.
The app will be added to your inventory (If you are not redirected, click on Manage in the menu bar, then Inventory and pick your app from there). As you can see, there’s a lot of files and dependencies to catch. Download them all, except the ARM one!
Note: The license file required for MDT/SCCM/WICD is the unencoded one
Once the files are downloaded, they need to be organized in a specific way before being imported into a deployment solution:
- In a temporary folder create a sub folder with the application name (in this example, mine is called “WordMobile”)
- Inside that folder create a subfolder called Dependencies
- Create an x86 and an x64 sub folder within Dependencies
- In the x86 folder place your x86 dependencies (in this example Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00_14.0.22929.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe.Appx)
- In the x64 folder place your x64 dependencies (in this example Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00_14.0.22929.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe.Appx)
- Place the other files on the root folder.
Your folder structure should looks like this:
Now that all is sorted out correctly, let’s see how we can integrate this Metro app with MDT, WICD and SCCM.
MDT Integration
MDT integration is quiet easy as it support Metro application since release 2013.
Import is done by right clicking on the Applications Node of the MDT console and by selecting New Application. On the Wizard panel choose Application with source file. Fill up the next panel with the standard application information. Then pick the folder where you’ve prepared your universal app.
The last and most import panel will let you specify the command line that will launch the installation. For this one, just specify the full name of the Appx/AppxBundle file without the path:
That’s all for MDT, your Application is now ready to be deployed!
WICD Integration
WICD also support universal apps but not as a package that you can throw up whenever you want during a deployment. The package needs to be staged into the WIM before being deployed. The installation will occur during “Offline servicing” stage.
With WICD, package creation can be done in two different ways:
- It can just create packages that you can install manually or execute during a task sequence.
- or create packages that are injected to a WIIM file. WICD can even build a fully functional ISO that you can use alone or inject to MDT or SCCM.
For this post, I will use the second method, but you can achieve the same goal with the other one, it just involve more manual work! (Some good tutorials here and there…)
Open WICD and click on New Windows Image Customization. A wizard will guide you to define name and location of your new project
On the next panel select The Windows image is based on a Windows images (WIM) file and pick a WIndows 10 image file from the requester
Next panel will ask if you want to import a previous provisioning package; leave the field blank and click finish.
Then appears the WICD console, on the tree panel, select the Deployment Asset node and then Applications.
To stage your application fill the following fields like this:
In package path, set the appx/appbundle path of the application, and choose a friendly and meaningful name to fill in the name field.
Dependency should be added one by one using the Browse, then Add button.
The path of the xml file (corresponding to the unencoded license download) should be entered for the license filed.
All Application info are set, click the save button on the bottom of the page for a final commit. If you need to add more apps you can repeat the process as much as you need.
The next step is to apply the applications to the WIM file. To do this, click on the Create button on the task bar and select Production media
A Wizard will prompt you for some options, be sure to select WIM file as image format. Leave other options as default and check that deployment media is saved to a folder. Once the folder is specified, a recap panel will appear, click on the Build button to begin the media creation (it will take a while…).
When all is finished your media is ready and can be used directly to deploy Windows or re injected in a deployment solution.
SCCM Integration
SCCM Application model also support deploying Metro Application. To install an app, go to Software Library>Application Management>Applications and right click to select Create Application. A panel will popup, from the application Type list, select Windows app Package:
Then use the Browse button to set the UNC path of you Universal Application (It should be prepared with the dependencies folder as explained earlier). Click Next when you’re done, You will then be asked to set the information appearing in the Software catalog
After that, SCCM will manage application and dependencies on its own. So apart from deploying the app to a DP and assigning it to a collection, there is nothing to add to be ready!
Now, you’re geared to deploy offline business store apps on most of the Microsoft deployment tools. Enjoy your Windows 10 deployments with even more control!