How to troubleshoot Win32 apps on device?

In this article, I want to share a couple of hints for where to find information on the Win32 app deployment process on the device.

First, you need to convert your application package into the Win32 app, then create an application in Intune, and afterward assign that application to the group. The assigned application will appear in the Company Portal for installation.

Now you can start the application installation process from the Company Portal.

These are backend steps taking place during application deployment from Company Portal:

  1. Log file – open a log file to check the progress of your application deployment
    • Log file can be found in here: “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\IntuneManagementExtension\Logs\IntuneManagementExtension.log”
  2. Installation execution – this indicates the start of the installation process with the application ID
    • —->>[Win32App] Processing app (id=9ba86179-d678-45b3-89c6-b1cbbe89faa7, name = 7-ZIP 19.00 Win32) with mode = DetectInstall
  3. Detection rules – check if the application is installed or not on the  device based on configured detection settings (registry, product code, file, etc.)
    • “[Win32App] ===Step=== Detection rules”
  4. Application requirements – check if the application meets set rules based on configured requirement settings (OS, version, disk, etc.)
    • [Win32App] ===Step=== Check applicability
  5. Downloaded content – start downloading the Win32 application locally on the device from Intune
    • [Win32App] ===Step=== Download
    • Step 1 – download application content
      • Content is a *.bin file is downloaded here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Intune Management Extension\Content\Incoming\809e1cde-6ff1-4fcc-ac34-8be8baad7070_1.bin
    • Step 2 – decrypt application content
      • *.bin file is decrypted to *.zip file here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Intune Management Extension\Content\Staging\0957f2e4-de9d-4a47-8380-b3e26a3c42cf_1.zip
    • Step 3 – unzip downloaded content
      • *.zip file is unzipped here: C:\WINDOWS\IMECache\9ba86179-d678-45b3-89c6-b1cbbe89faa7_1
  6. Command line – execute the application installation with set command line
    • [Win32App] ===Step=== InstallBehavior RegularWin32App
  7. Installation finalization – check if the application is installed based on set detection rules
    • [Win32App] ===Step=== Detection rules after Execution

Hopefully, you find this helpful and useful in case you need to troubleshoot application deployment issues in the future.

Here are a couple of screenshots from the described section above

Log file

Written by: Martins Kurtiss