ThinApp - VMware's Application Virtualization - Try It

For those out there that weren't aware, VMware acquired Thinstall in January (along with Foedus) and rebranded it ThinApp. Thinstall was a company that provided application virtualization. Application Virtualization is a very vague term, as Citrix, Softgrid (now App-V owned by Microsoft), and even web based apps can be classified as virtualized. Each vendor does it differently, but the end result is delivery of an application without having to install it the traditional way.

• Try ThinApp'd Firefox and more here: http://www.thindownload.com/

In lay mans terms, ThinApp allows you to create distributable msi's / exe's that behave like standalone apps. Remember the applications on Windows 95 that would just run when you clicked the exe, no registry, no writing to system32? Well that's the idea here. What happens under the covers is that an administrator uses a clean machine / snapshot method of capturing an install. Then the ThinApp software uses it's intelligence to to create a project. From that project an administrator can create exe's and/or msi's for delivery. When delivered through logon script etc as and exe the user can launch the exe without admin privileges and all dll's / registry entries are put into a virtual space. So the app thinks it has full access to the system, when in fact it is writing to a harmless virtual space. The MSI works very similarly, however it can also be deployed via Group Policy / SMS / etc and provides a better method of file association.

One of the major benefits of delivering applications this way is that there is no dependence on build of machine. As long as you are running Windows, the application will run. It runs in it's own space, so it is even possible to run ie5 / ie6 / ie7, all at the same time. The other major benefit comes from the fact that you are just launching a file. If ie7 was pushed out for example and you wanted everyone to run ie8, you would just need to replace the exe or shortcut target on the file server. There are also options for offline applications etc.

If anyone has any questions or would like more information, please email me at Morgan.Hamilton@dyntek.com.