Application Groups in Configuration Manager 1910

Application groups have been around for some Technical Preview releases and it was introduced in Current branch 1906. In MEMCM 1910 we got to new features:

• Deploy to User collections
• Allow end user to uninstall an available app group.

It is the latest of the two we will look into in this post, Uninstall. Being able to uninstall an app group is a must so I tested it out and it works just fine but we need it for required deployments as well.

I would like to see more possibilities, specifically a check box for “reverse install order during uninstall” That is how we do basically all uninstalls today, if we install them in a specific order we remove them in the reverse order, in some cases you cannot uninstall them otherwise. Also, the option to the leave an app installed for example when uninstalling.

Note:
– If an application triggers a reboot the Application Group will fail at that step and not install any more apps in the groups.
– If an application in the group is superseded it will be skipped.

In Configuration Manager 1910 the uninstall order is the same as the install order. Let’s have a look what happens.

My app group for testing:

If we look at the client where our Application group is installed the last installed app in “Configuration Manager Support Center” as expected.

So what happens if we uninstall the Application Group using Software Center?

When uninstalling the same Application Group the order is the same InstEd then Orca and last Configuration Manager Support Center is uninstalled as shown below.

I have created a user voice item for this as well, please vote for it here: https://configurationmanager.uservoice.com/forums/300492-ideas/suggestions/39265045-application-groups-reverese-control-uninstall-orde

I assume that part of this will be solved when we can select intent when we deploy an Application Group, it is not possible today as the option is grayed out as shown below.

When that is possible it will be possible to have one Application Group for install and one for uninstall with different order, that will be great for all the required scenarios.
However, the uninstall feature would need the above additions to be really useful in the “available” deployment scenario.