User Experience Virtualization (UEV) use to be part of the MDOP packs…. however MDOP’s last update was in 2015…. leaving some of us wondering what was happening to awesome tools contained within.
Given Microsoft’s recent desire to destroy anything and everything that isn’t cloud – irrelevant of its ability to fill gaps that cloud services don’t currently service well, or their ability to facilitate migration to cloud – it seemed likely that these tools were dead.
Fortunately for UEV, its now included in Windows 10 Enterprise as a default service, for versions 1607 and 1703 (and we may be able to assume future releases as well). Some details on the release are here – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/ue-v/uev-whats-new-in-uev-for-windows
Unfortunately, in standard Microsoft fashion, the documentation is not good.
The UEV documentation is located here – https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-desktop-optimization-pack/uev-v2/deploy-required-features-for-ue-v-2x-new-uevv2
However, there are a few, quite important things that anyone deploying this should be aware of
- Even though it isn’t stated anywhere in the doco, and seems quite counter-intuitive based on what’s presented in the GPO settings, the default Microsoft included templates do not automatically register on clients. These can be copied to your custom templates path, or you can register them with powershell on each machine as per http://ccmexec.com/2017/02/synchronizing-ie-favorites-with-ue-v-in-windows-1607/
- The UEV template generator is part of the ADK (1607 or 1703) – however, it does not show up if you try and run the ADK installer on Windows 8.1 or server 2012 R2. I haven’t tried on Windows 10 versions below 1607 or 1703 – but it will show/be installable on those versions.