Using environment variables to provide shortcuts across multiple OS Versions and architectures

Question

This week I was facing a scenario, where regular techniques to deploy shortcuts through GPOs are not sufficent anymore.

I was facing an environment, where XP,7,10 is present in both, 32 bit (x86) and 64 bit (x64) architectures - and multiple languages.

• Many applications can be installed for both architectures (x86 and x64) and run on every system.
• Some Users require both, the x86 and x64 version availbale through different shortcuts.

So, how to efficently create Shortcuts for over 60 automatically distributed applications?

Answer 1

Problem

Using the well known environment variables like %programfiles%, programfiles(x86) does not workout anymore, because:

• XP does not know the programfiles(x86) variable
• programfiles refers to the x86 or x64 folder, based on the architecture of the machine. (Or more specific: To the architecture of the process calling the variable)
• For XP, the name of the 32-bit-folder is localized (I.e. C:\Programme (x86) for a german XP, running x64)

Assuming, that there are 2 languages, 2 OS Types (7,10 behave equal regarding "type") and 2 architecture types, the following Options are possible with "native" Tools, but it is already clumsy:

To create a shortcut to the "highest" version, you need to deploy 3 Shortcut "rules":

Shortcut |Target                           | Purpose
App      |%programfiles%\App\app.exe       | x86-app on a x86-xp-7-10 or
         |                                 | x64-app on a x64-xp-7-10
App      |%programfiles(x86)%\App\app.exe  | x86-app on a x64-7-10
App      |C:\Programme (x86)\App\app.xe    | x86-app on a x64-xp (german)

Assuming, you also want to enable the possibility of every application beeing available as x86 and x64 at the same time, it gets even worse, because: %programfiles% will lead to wrong results (it could be either x86 or x64) - So you need WMI-Filters on every "shortcut" beeing created to handle this.

A rule like this:

Shortcut |Target                           | Purpose
App 64   |%programfiles%\app\app.exe       | x64-app on a x64-7-10

would accidently link the 32 bit version on 32-bit-systems with the name x64 - without some WMI-Filter, deactivating the rule.

So it would be 4 rules, 2 with WMI-Filters:

Shortcut |Target                           | Purpose
App 64   |%programfiles%\App\app.exe       | x64-app on a x64-xp-7-10 + wmi-filter
App 32   |%programfiles%\App\app.exe       | x86-app on a x86-xp-7-10 + wmi_filter
App 32   |%programfiles(x86)%\App\app.exe  | x86-app on a x64-7-10 
App 32   |C:\Programme (x86)\App\app.xe    | x86-app on a x64-xp (german) 

So - 240 shortcut rules, if there is only one "foreign language" - But there where 5 of them -> 480 error prone shortcut rules. -> Nope!

The Goal

I wanted to be able to reduce the amount of work required. Just creating (worst-case) 2 entries per shortcut, stating:

• This application can be available anywhere, as 32-bit version.
• This application can be available on 64-bit machines only, as 64 bit version.

Custom Environment Variables by GPO, using WMI Filters

As a solution to this question, I've created 1 GPO to create the required custom Environment-Variables:

Variable | Purpose           
%pf_x86% | Program Files x86 on any system 
%pf_x64% | Program Files x64 on any system (if existing)

So, this (single GPO) comes down to a total of 6 rules (+1 for every additional language of XP):

Variable | Value               | OS     | WMI Filter (Item-Level-Targeting): 
%pf_x86% | %programfiles%      |7 x86   | select * from Win32_OperatingSystem
                                          WHERE Version like "6.%" AND  
                                          ProductType="1" AND 
                                          NOT OSArchitecture = "64-bit"
%pf_x86% | %programfiles(x86)% |7,10 x64| select * from Win32_OperatingSystem
                                          WHERE  (Version like "6.%" OR 
                                          Version like "10.%") AND
                                          ProductType="1" AND 
                                          OSArchitecture = "64-bit"
%pf_x86% | %programfiles%      |XP x86  | select * from Win32_OperatingSystem 
                                          WHERE (Version like "5.1%") AND 
                                          ProductType="1"
%pf_x86% | C:\Programme (x86)  |XP x64  | select * from Win32_OperatingSystem 
                                          WHERE (Version like "5.2%") AND 
                                          ProductType="1" AND OSLanguage=1031
%pf_x64% | %programfiles%      |7,10 x64| select * from Win32_OperatingSystem
                                          WHERE Version like (Version like "6.%" OR 
                                          Version like "10.%") AND 
                                          ProductType="1" AND 
                                          OSArchitecture = "64-bit"
%pf_x64% | %programfiles%      |XP x64  | select * from Win32_OperatingSystem 
                                          WHERE (Version like "5.2%") AND 
                                          ProductType="1"

(OS Languages are outlined here: https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/appendix/OSLangCodes.htm)

Outcome

This custom environment variable now allows me to configure exactly two shurtcuts per application - No matter which OS-Version is running on whatever architecture or language

Shortcut |Target               | Purpose
App 64   |%pf_x64%\App\app.exe | x64-app on any environment.
App 32   |%pf_x86%\App\app.exe | x86-app on any environment.

And if both exist - both shortcuts will be deployed.

Windows 7, 64bit, ML

Windows 7, 32bit, ML

Windows XP, 32 bit, ger

etc. pp.