Application Virtualization Comparison Chart
The guys at virtualfuture.info have released a new version of their Application Virtualization Comparison Chart. This document compares all of the major products in the application virtualization market.
| Symantec | Software Virtualization Solution 6.1 Workspace Streaming 6.1 |
| Microsoft | Application Virtualization 4.5 CU1 |
| Citrix | XenApp 5.0 & Streaming Profiler 1.3.1 |
| InstallFree | Bridge 1.9.2.6 |
| VMware | ThinApp 4.0.3 (Build 3313) |
| XenoCode | Virtual Application Studio 2009 SP1 |
In this document not only the performance counts but also the feature lists are compared and put together in an easy to read overview. I have to say: Great job guys!
Want to read this document yourself ? Click here to go to virtualfuture.info
App-v on a stick!
Last friday our colleague Peter Nap released the first version of his App-V USB Tool, The free App-v USB tool can be used to import and register sequenced applications into the App-V client fully automated, just put your applications on a USB device and insert the device in a PC that is running the App-V USB Tool. If you do this the App-V tool will ask you what to do.
After choosing option one or two the client will import and register the application(s) on the USB device and register associated file-types. And you're ready to use them!
You can also choose to import a folder just by right clicking it (this folder doesn't have to be on the USB device)
You can download The App-V USB tool for free from the tools section at loginconsultants.com.
VMware: Wake up!
Today a negative post from my side, VMware what are you doing, is everyone of the Thinapp team on a permanent vacation ? Why is there still no Windows 7 Support ? And even more important: Where is the official statement telling us when it will be available.
What is the alternative: XenoCode perhaps!
When comparing features XenoCode is very alike with Thinapp (Only they have win7 support 
). When it comes to being userfriendly during the capture off applications XenoCode is far ahead, they have include a standard set of templates for common applications.
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A smart thing to create from the XenoCode team is the converter this is the Ability to import external application configurations, including VMware ThinApp configurations: Customers who have already packaged applications using other technologies, including VMware ThinApp/Thinstall, can now import these configurations into Studio with a single click, without the need for any recapture.
Want to try XenoCode quick and simple just try some applications online! you can just run them like a youtube video after installing a little plugin: click here to test.
While i was writing this post Henk got all exited about XenoCode and wanted to give it a try so he’s gonna write the follow up 
Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced released
A few days ago Immidio released their new version of Flex Profiles. Flex Profiles can be used together with mandatory profiles to store pre-defined settings (eg: wallpaper, ie passwords, outlook signature ect) but keep the advantages of a full mandatory profile (speed, corruption, bloating) we like to call this a “hybrid profile”.
Lucky as i am i had a chance to test Flex Profiles Advanced and some of the new features that are in it. Below you will find a list of what i think are the most cool new features!
- Pricing -Flex Profiles Advanced fixes a very specific problem for a small price
- Cross platform desktop support
- Support for virtualized applications! (app-v, thinapp etc)
- Compression of the zipfiles that hold the user settings/files (This can save a lot of disk space but watch the performance!)
- Fully configurable via GPO, woohoo no more ini files on every machine
GUI & Automated INI file creation
One of the more time-consuming actions with Flex has always been the creating of the application INI files, the INI files are used to tell the FlexEngine what files / settings have to be saved. But instead of doing this completely by hand you can now use The Flex Profiles Assistant:
- Start the Flex Profiles Assistant
- Start Procmon monitoring (can be done from within de assistant)
- Change some settings that you want the FlexEngine to save
- Stop Procmon monitoring
- Save the Logfile in XML format
- Let the assistant process the logfile and zip it. (Hint: This has to be done on a reference machine, the assistant adds machine info like redirected folders etc to the log file)
- Import the .FLEX file in the Flex Profiles Management Console
- Select the application you want to Flex
- Very important! Check if what the Assistant put in the INI file makes sense! And clean up anything you do not want to be saved / you thing is not important to save.
An other great new feature are the predefined common settings, this is a list of actions you want the FlexEngine to perform without configuring an INI file. For instance you can now click “Internet Explorer – auto complete settings” and the engine is configured to save all settings necessary to remember IE passwords. You can imagine how much easier this is than figuring out an INI file.
As a conclusion: After testing this version of Immidio Flex Profiles i must say i am impressed by the processing speed of the engine and the enormous list of new features they implemented to make our lives easier: This product is worth the money guys!
Example INI FIle:
[IncludeRegistryTrees]
HKCU\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0[Information]
Title = Acrobat Reader 9
Description = To be able to read PDF Files[Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition]
This file was created using the Immidio Flex Profiles Management Console.
Only use with Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition.
Office 2010 – Click to run installer – “modification”
As a tech guy you get invited for beta’s on a regular basis, this happened to me for office 2010 a while ago. When i logged on to Microsoft connect i found out Microsoft does not give away full blown iso’s anymore but something they like to call “Click to run Installer”. *hmm interesting.
A couple of minutes after installing it was clear to me the click to run installer is a modified version of Microsoft app-v (softgrid registry keys, the famous Q drive etc), only the softgrid processes are hidden and sfttray does not seem available.
Well so far so good, but then i remembered the app-v 4.6 beta also went public. so this is where it got interesting: What if i take the OSD files from the “Click to run installer” and feed them to a normal app-v client. i guessed there would be some sort of mechanism preventing me to load the applications, this suspicion was increased by the first application i started because it was asking for a certificate 
but no worries.. From all the osd files i managed to start a certificate manager
So here is a little howto:
- Get invited to the beta of office 2010 to get your hands on some OSD files
- Get the app-v 4.6 client (connect.microsoft.com)
- Extract the OSD files from the machine where you ran the “click to run installer” (C:\Users\Public\Documents\SoftGrid Client\OSD Cache)
- Import the OSD files on the app-v 4.6 client
- Load the application(s): for instance with “Sfttray.exe /loadall”
- Run the application via the GUID name: for instance “Sfttray.exe /launch {eef3cf80-26b2}”
I definitely see a future for this type of application delivery, where even home users use techniques that are common for enterprises these days: How great would it be if you could just stream a application and only pay when you are really using it ? – as a service!
Login VSI 2 – It’s alive!!!
Long awaited and almost here: Login VSI 2.0 after the successes with Login VSI 1.0 and Project Virtual Reality Check we just had to go 2.0, so we dusted off our development machines and testing environment and got working. The first thing we did was gather all bugs annoyances and feature requests that we received when Login VSI 1.0 was released, together with our own best practices and experiences we had a good foundation to start on a solid new version.
At this moment the beta is available for a limited number of test users, these are employees of all the major virtualization vendors, Citrix CTP’s and a number of hand picked VSI 1.0 customers. Do you think you can convince me to also invite you to the beta ? Please drop a line in the comments!
Next you will find a short list of what i think are the most important changes on VSI *note some off these features are not free but Login VSI 2 will also be available in a full functional free version.
· New workloads (Light/Medium/Heavy/Multimedia)
· Informative progress bar during workload execution
· New external clock using SQL for reference purposes (Pro Only)
Analyzer
- Setup supports network installations
- New VSImax calculation: much more precise
- Automatic renaming of excel files to “testname”
Target/workload build from scratch
- New medium and multimedia workload (now 12 instead of 18 minutes)
- More multimedia
- New websites
- Zip support
- 2008 R2 Compatible PDF printer
- IE 8 support
- More reliable than the 1.0 release: “stuck” sessions reduced to minimum
- New timer mechanism (without sleeps to improve measurements in VM’S)
- External reference clock using SQL
- Detailed debug logging
- All configuration moved to central location
Active directory
- Fixed policies for 2003 AD
- Split system / user policy objects
- Added Computers OU
- Improved setup user objects ( no password expiry etc)
- Streamlined minor setup bugs
Launcher
- New pre-launch naming of test: no more archiving of test needed
As you can see we made a lot of changes, as soon as the beta goes public (this should happen shortly!) i will go into more detail on specific funtions and possibilities with VSI.
IPV6
Sometimes you all you want to do is build a nice little demo environment FAST! The last thing you are waiting for is troubleshooting basic networking troubles. So one of the first things i did in my virtual machine was disabling the IPv6 protocol on my NIC.
At this point you think IPv6 is disabled... right ?
Well just ping localhost and see what happens:
Hmm a reply from ::1: that doesn't look very IPv4 to me so how do we fix this: Browse to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\tcpip6\Parameters\
Create a DWORD key
Name: DisabledComponents
Value: ff (hex)
Reboot the machine and you are happy again
Windows 7
Wohoo finally available as RC, and of course within one minute i have the nasty habit of changing things like for instance the explorer button in the taskbar that brings you to the library folder (yeah who cares??). So to change this button to something usefull here is a quick fix:
Right click the button
Right click "windows explorer" and open properties
Change target to: %windir%\explorer.exe ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
Click OK!
Xenserver and windows 7 part two
Just two weeks ago i told you how to get the windows 7 beta running on XenServer. At this moment Citrix describes this method as "The hard way" (i prefer to call it "The cool way" ). As expected the problem is caused by running Windows 7 enlightened, this should make virtual machines faster because they know they are virtual. As we discovered this does not work yet.
Now the easy way to run Windows 7 on XenServer: Just download this template and install it. Remember when using this template you're machine is not hypervisor aware anymore so might perform less. Because it's called the easy way lets quote how to install it to.
After downloading and unzipping the template follow the steps below.
Getting it onto your XenServer system:
1. In XenCenter right-click on your server and select Import VM
2. Browse to the file and select Exported Template as the Import TypeBuilding a Windows 7 Beta VM:
1. Once the template is installed just click New VM button and the Windows 7 Template will show up at the top of the first screen
2. The rest is business as usual just be sure to add a disk drive and a NIC as you are creating the VM
App-v ADM
Wow, app-v is hot this week, not only did Ment van der Plas release his ACDC tool, but also Ruben Koene released his improved version of the SoftGrid 4.1 Client ADM by Rodney Medina. In his most creative mood Ruben called it the: App-V 4.5 Add-on ADM v1.0.
The App-V 4.5 Add-on ADM Template configures client setting for the App-V 4.5 for Windows Desktops Client. The ADM template centrally manages common client configurations by using an existing Group Policy infrastructure and includes settings for communication, client Settings, client Interface and permissions. The App-V 4.5 Add-on ADM Template is a template that fills the gap of the Microsoft App-V 4.5 ADM template. This template is supplementary to the Microsoft App-V 4.5 ADM Template.