Verify Notepad++ Deployment

Now that you have published Notepad++ to your Windows 10 Devices and logged into the Workspace ONE catalog, let's review how to verify that your application was deployed successfully.

1. Confirm Deployment in the Workspace ONE Catalog

  1. Ensure the Notepad++ app displays and shows as Installed.
  2. If the Notepad++ app is not installed yet, you may need to wait a few minutes for it to complete.  Click the Refresh button to reload the page as needed.

As an end user, you will have access to the Notepad++ application once it is installed.  If you are able to see the Notepad++ application in the Catalog and the status displays as Installed, then the deployment was successful and our parameters for determining a successful install were correct.

INFO: The Notepad++ application began to install automatically because you set the App Delivery Method as Auto in the Workspace ONE UEM Console.  If you had applications that you did not want to deploy automatically that users could download when needed, you could set the App Delivery Method to On Demand and allow end users to initiate the Notepad++ download from the Workspace ONE catalog.

2. Confirm Application Installed

  1. Click the Windows button.
  2. Confirm Notepad++ displays in the Recently Added section, confirming the install.

3. Deployment Details and Troubleshooting

In most cases, a successfully deployment is easily verified by inspecting if the app was installed or deployed to your device through either the Workspace ONE Catalog or by inspecting files that you are expecting to install.  Continue through this section to see how you can inspect other details for further troubleshooting and for additional details on Software Distribution on Windows 10.

3.1. Inspecting Application Details

You can view additional details  about the application, the deployment status, and potential errors in the Workspace ONE UEM Console.  You can also find the Build Version here, which we will cover shortly to demo how to check the AppDeploymentCache and Registry on your devices for further debugging.

In the Workspace ONE UEM Console,

  1. Click Apps & Books.
  2. Click Notepad++.

3.2. Additional Information and Troubleshooting in the Workspace ONE UEM Console

  1. Click the Devices tab.
  2. Check the Install Status of the application.  Note that ours already shows as Installed.  If an install was pending or had failed, this would be reflected here.
  3. Click the link to the enrolled device.

3.2.1. Inspecting Device Apps

In addition to our previous method, we can also check the status through the Device Details View.

  1. Click the Apps tab.
  2. Scroll through the list and find the Notepad++ application.  Notice that our shows as installed, and other statuses would be reflected here as well.
  1. Click the More tab dropdown.
  2. Click Troubleshooting.

3.2.3. View the Event Logs for Application Events

  1. Click Event Log.
  2. Enter Application into the search and press enter.  Since we may have several records to search through, we want to inspect only those pertaining to our Application events.
  3. You may need to scroll to the right to view the Event Data column.
  4. Notice the Event Data column associated with each Event.  You can click any of these links to retrieve additional details about the event, inspecting potential issues and errors for why the deployment failed.

Feel free to inspect the Event Data links as desired, then continue to the next step.

3.3. Obtaining the Application Build Version

The Application Build Version is used to find your application details within the Registry and AppDeploymentCache.  Before investigating those areas, we will first obtain the Build Version from the Workspace ONE UEM Console.

In the Workspace ONE UEM Console,

  1.  Click Apps & Books.
  2. Click Notepad++.

3.3.1. Note the Build Version for the Notepad++ Application

  1. Click the Details tab.
  2. Note the Build Version value for this application.

In the following steps, we will check the Registry and App Deployment Cache on the Windows 10 device for additional troubleshooting.  In our lab, we've only deployed one application so finding the correct folder will be easy.  However, in a production environment, there could be multiple applications being deployed and the folder names will match the Build Version found above, so it is important to know where to retrieve this to debug the correct application deployment.

3.4. Inspecting the AppDeploymentCache

  1. Click the File Explorer icon from the task bar.
  2. Enter %programdata%\AirWatchMDM\AppDeploymentCache into the search bar and press enter.

3.4.1. Obtain Access to the AppDeploymentCache folder

Click Continue.

3.4.2. Open the Notepad++ Folder (Noted by Build Version)

Double-click the folder in the AppDeploymentCache.  Note that the name matches the Build Version we previewed in the Workspace ONE UEM Console for the Notepad++ application previously.

In a production scenario, you could have multiple application caches here, each notated by their own Build Version.  Retrieving this value from the Workspace ONE UEM Console to find the correct cache is an important step in debugging the correct deployment.

3.4.3. Obtain Access to the Application Cache Folder

Click Continue.

3.4.4. Inspect App Deployment Cache for Notepad++

  1. Notice that our only file for this deployment is the Notepad++ Installer.exe, which we uploaded to the Workspace ONE UEM Console in our previous steps.  If we had uploaded a .zip containing multiple files, those would be displayed here.
    NOTE - This app cache allows you to confirm if the application contents are reaching the device, and if so, what their file names are.  
  2. Notice that the deployed filename matches our Install Command under Deployment Options > How To Install when we setup the application in the AirWatch Console.  
    NOTE - If your application is not installing, it is useful to compare the deployed contents and ensure your Install Command is setup correctly to reference the correct filenames and paths.

3.5. Inspecting the AppDeploymentAgent Registry Entries

You can also inspect the Registry for additional information on the deployment.  To get started, we need to launch regedit.

  1. Click the Windows Start button.
  2. Enter regedit.
  3. Click the regedit result.

3.6. Allow Access to RegEdit

Click Yes to allow User Account Control to Registry Editor.

3.6.1. Inspect the AppDeploymentAgent Contents

  1. Expand Computer.
  2. Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
  3. Expand SOFTWARE.
  4. Expand AirWatchMDM.
  5. Expand AppDeploymentAgent.
  6. Inspect the contents of the AppManifests, ContentManifests, Queue and S-1-#### sections.

Notice that the folder name matches the Build Version of our Notepad++ application, same as the AppDeploymentCache.

  • AppManifests contains information about the options set in the Workspace ONE UEM Console from the Deployment Options tab of your application.
  • ContentManifests contains information about the options set in the Workspace ONE UEM Console from the Files tab of your application.
  • Queue will contain information the applications that are currently pending installation.  In our example, the Notepad++ application has finished and so it's entry is no longer available in the Queue.  As files complete or error and the install stops, they will be moved to the S-1-#### section.
  • S-1-#### will contain information about the install process for applications that completed successfully or with errors.  In our example, the Notepad++ application has finished and has moved to this section.  

There can be two S-1-#### entries under AppDeploymentAgent.  The names of these entries refer to the SID (Security Identifier), which will be based on the Install Context we configured when deploying the application previously in the AirWatch Console.

  • S-1-5-18 contains applications pushed to the Device Install Context, and refers to the service account that is used by the operating system.
  • S-1-5-21-#### contains applications pushed to the User Install Context, and refers to the SID (Security Identifier) of the user account.

For more information regarding SIDs (Security Identifiers), refer to: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/243330/well-known-security-identifiers-in-windows-operating-systems.

3.6.2. Application Status Codes

  1. Click the entry under S-1-####.
  2. Inspect the LastDeploymentLog entry.
  3. Inspect the LastStatusCode entry.

The Queue and S-1-#### entries will contain the LastStatusCode and LastDeploymentLog entires you can inspect to see additional details about the process and discern why the install finished or failed.  When evaluating the logs (LastDeploymentLogs) provided in these entries, it is important to also reference the Status Codes (LastStatusCode) to help determine what occurred and why.

For reference, a list of Status Codes are included below:

DEPLOYMENT_OPERATION_QUEUED         = 0x000,

 FIRST_DETECTION_INPROGRESS          = 0x100,
  FIRST_DETECTION_FAILED,
  FIRST_DETECTION_SUCCESSFUL,

 CHECK_REFERENCE_COUNT_INPROGRESS    = 0x200,
  CHECK_REFERENCE_COUNT_FAILED,
  CHECK_REFERENCE_COUNT_SUCCESSFUL,

 REQUIREMENTS_EVALUATION_INPROGRESS  = 0x300,
  REQUIREMENTS_EVALUATION_FAILED,
  REQUIREMENTS_EVALUATION_SUCCESSFUL,

 DEPENDENCIES_INPROGRESS             = 0x400,
  DEPENDENCIES_FAILED,
  DEPENDENCIES_SUCCESSFUL,

 SANITIZE_CACHE_INPROGRESS           = 0x500,
  SANITIZE_CACHE_FAILED,
  SANITIZE_CACHE_SUCCESSFUL,

 PENDING_NETWORK_CONNECTIVITY        = 0x600,
  DOWNLOAD_CONTENT_INPROGRESS,
  PENDING_DOWNLOAD_RETRY,
  DOWNLOAD_CONTENT_FAILED,
  DOWNLOAD_CONTENT_SUCCESSFUL,

 TRANSFORM_CACHE_INPROGRESS          = 0x700,
  TRANSFORM_CACHE_FAILED,
  TRANSFORM_CACHE_SUCCESSFUL,

 PENDING_USER_SESSION                = 0x800,
  EXEC_DEPLOYMENT_INPROGRESS,        = 0x801
  PENDING_EXEC_DEPLOYMENT_RETRY,     = 0x802
  EXEC_DEPLOYMENT_FAILED,            = 0x803
  EXEC_DEPLOYMENT_SUCCESSFUL,        = 0x804
  PENDING_REBOOT,                    = 0x805

 FINAL_DETECTION_INPROGRESS          = 0x900,
  FINAL_DETECTION_FAILED,            = 0x901,
  FINAL_DETECTION_SUCCESSFUL,        = 0x902,

 DEPLOYMENT_OPERATION_FAILED         = 0x40000000,
  DEPLOYMENT_OPERATION_SUCCEEDED     = 0x80000000,
  DEPLOYMENT_OPERATION_SUSPENDED     = 0xC0000000

4. Conclusion

There are several ways to debug a failed or erroneous Software Distribution deployment, as we have reviewed.  The Workspace ONE UEM Console is a good first step for determining what is occurring, but digging into the AppDeploymentCache and AppDeploymentAgent registry files will assist in deeper troubleshooting to determine any issues.

With this knowledge in mind, we will move onto deploying Office 365.  Continue to the next step.

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