Gridmetric Lib-V -
Powerful App-V Package SDK for your own applications

Lib-V is the only fully featured Microsoft App-V package Software Development Kit (SDK) in the market, which is capable of supporting ALL known App-V package versions released in the past 10 years. Create, read and write packages both for the classic, or "legacy", App-V versions or for current App-V 5.X package versions.

What exactly is Lib-V?

Lib-V is a .NET 2.0 compatible library component (assembly) written in C# language, which makes it possible for you to incorporate reading and/or writing capabilities of Microsoft App-V's package files into any .NET based application.

With Gridmetric Lib-V, you will be able to decode, process, update and re-encode existing App-V packages as well as create completely new packages from the scratch - with the exact content you want to go into there and control of the virtualization parameters.

What can I use Lib-V for?

Lib-V can be used in several different scenarios involving software manufacturing and service delivery, including but not limited to:

Add true App-V support for your own products

While some of the files in both old and new App-V packages are plain-text XML files, the most crucial main package file (.SFT file in legacy App-V, .APPV in the new one) is in the binary format that has a complicated structure to parse and encode. Implementing a complete and reliable support for both reading and writing this fileformat involves big development effort using lacking, scarce and non-existent documentation. And without the main package file, let's face it, there is only so much your software can do by fiddling with the XML files.

So any software developer looking to add full and complete support for App-V packages in products such as package inspection tools, editors, packaging tools etc. will have instant benefit from being able to "drop-in" this functionality without lengthy development time and process.

As a bonus, Lib-V also includes support for those plain-text files as well, removing need to fight with several different flavours of XML and inter-dependencies between files.

Create in-house builder of App-V package

With Lib-V, software vendors can make their own custom packaging tool to use in the build process to output completely customized App-V package of their own software alongside the traditional installer.

This package can then be distributed as an additional method of software delivery for those customers who have App-V infrastructure in place and would otherwise require re-packaging of the original product installer. Unlike using Microsoft -supplied Sequencer, Lib-V offers raw access to App-V package files and possibility to affect every possible bit of information inside those package files, all without difficult-to-automate and difficult-to-integrate build process as compared to using native tools.

Enhance your App-V related services

If you are an organisation providing consultancy over App-V, you could differentiate yourself from the competitors by having the most comprehensive custom -built toolkit in packaging services. For any consultant/developer having experience with .NET language (and since App-V 5 has strong reliance on PowerShell, you most likely already know the basics of .NET!) it's easy to start doing interesting things with Lib-V by building front-ends and tools. No other tool in the market allows the level of programmatic access to App-V packages as Gridmetric Lib-V!