Not to be confused with the Merge with Local Directory setting, even as standard without tweaking the behaviour if I were to the sequence another package which shared the same root, the packages will automatically merge. Cutting down the confusion and making things much clearer! Another massive benefit of this and one of the reasons people used to specify “dummy PVADs” is now the roots of packages inside a connection group will merge. That’s right, everything is now put into VFS.
Now to say the PVAD has been the subject of a lot of discussion since the release of App-V 5.0 RTM would be a massive understatement! I can recall countless conversations/debates about what the standard should be, most people had strong feelings that the best way forward was to avoid the PVAD and go VFS all the way! Well check out how this package looks when sequenced as default now: You will notice that the SP3 sequencer no longer requires the entering of a Primary Virtual Application Directory or PVAD prior to sequencing. Before I say too much lets play a game of spot the difference! Below are two screenshots of me sequencing Paint.NET in both pre-SP3 and SP3 for App-V 5.0: Pre-SP3
