Thinapp Reviewers Guide
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VMware ThinApp 4 Reviewer’s Guide
Contents OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................................................................1 CHALLENGES DRIVING THE EVOLUTION OF THE DESKTOP ........................................................................................................................................................1 Decouple Applications from Desktop Images .......................................................................................................................................................1 Desktop Migrations: Hardware, Operating Systems and Applications......................................................................................................2 Systems Management Tools from Multiple Vendors..........................................................................................................................................2 Security and Flexibility......................................................................................................................................................................................................2 VMWARE THINAPP: ARCHITECTED FOR CHANGE .......................................................................................................................................................................2 New Features in VMware ThinApp 4..........................................................................................................................................................................3 Usage Scenarios..................................................................................................................................................................................................................4 GETTING STARTED WITH VMWARE THINAPP ....................................................................................................................8 WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO GET STARTED TO REVIEW VMWARE THINAPP: ............................................................................................................................8 Supported platforms:........................................................................................................................................................................................................8 Not supported:.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 Pristine OS..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 THINAPP PACKAGING PROCESS...........................................................................................................................................9 PACKAGING APPLICATIONS WITH VMWARE THINAPP ...............................................................................................................................................................9 DEPLOYING APPLICATIONS TO PCS, VIRTUAL DESKTOPS AND USB FLASH DRIVES.......................................................................................................13 Application Link ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Application Sync.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14 MONITORING INVENTORY AND SOFTWARE USAGE..................................................................................................................................................................15 INTEGRATING THINAPP WITH DESKTOP MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND PROCESSES ...........................................................................................................15 CONTROLLING APPLICATION USE AND MAINTAINING LICENSE COMPLIANCE ................................................................................................................16 TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW................................................................................................................................................... 16 WHAT IS APPLICATION VIRTUALIZATION? ..................................................................................................................................................................................16 HOW VMWARE THINAPP WORKS ................................................................................................................................................................................................16 ADVANTAGES OF THINAPP .............................................................................................................................................................................................................16 HOW THINAPP WORKS WITH OTHER VMWARE PRODUCTS...................................................................................................................................................17 ThinApp and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).......................................................................................................................... 17 ThinApp and VMware Workstation......................................................................................................................................................................... 17 ThinApp and VMware ACE.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 ABOUT VMWARE .................................................................................................................................................................. 17
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Overview Maintaining agility in today’s global economy is critical to ongoing business success. Agility in light of strict regulatory, security and contract restrictions is often difficult to achieve in economies of scale with traditional desktop and application configurations. Application virtualization augments both traditional and virtual desktop solutions by abstracting applications from their underlying operating systems to enable the mobile worker to move about the globe at the speed of business. Just as VMware virtual machine technology decouples the operating system from hardware, VMware ThinApp (formerly Thinstall) breaks the bond between software applications and operating systems to deliver the same benefits of flexibility, portability and isolation. ThinApp offers agentless application virtualization and plugs directly into existing IT tools and processes, enabling corporate IT organizations and ISVs to deliver encapsulated applications across a variety of similar OS versions (NT, XP, Vista) so that applications can move with users as needed without violating corporate policies. VMware ThinApp has over seven years of product development and over a million deployed seats. The speed at which VMware has been able to integrate the Thinstall product and company into the desktop family of products is a true testament to our dedication to this space and flexibility of the original Thinstall technology. Key ThinApp agentless application virtualization advantages: •
Eliminate application conflicts to ease Vista Migrations
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Accelerate and streamline the development and delivery process.
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Leverage and enhance existing infrastructure and management tools.
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Deploy portable applications to virtually any PC (physical and virtual), thin client or USB flash drive while maintaining compliance.
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Lock down endpoints (such as PCs) without restructuring the use of critical applications.
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No server or new administration tools to integrate to or learn.
ThinApp pioneered the agentless application virtualization approach based on their more then 1000 customers and a million deployed endpoints. Unlike other tools, agentless application virtualization installs nothing on the underlying file system – eliminating security risks from agents that require Administrative rights.
Challenges Driving the Evolution of the Desktop Use of virtualization for both servers and desktops has grown exponentially over the last five years primarily due to the changing face of IT and the ongoing challenges it faces trying to address the needs of the business. Although IT organizations can maintain many of the processes, policies and procedures; the monolithic desktops in which they support have made it hard to drive the technology or people elements of business service management. As CIOs, CTOs and IT managers are being pressured to reduce costs, maintain compliance and address the needs of a mobile workforce, there is a growing need to regain control of corporate desktops and data.
Decouple Applications from Desktop Images For years both PC configuration management vendors and enterprises have been challenged to enable and provide an answer to the business’ growing demand to provide applications, hardware, and connectivity provisioned based on user roles and business requirements with limited success. Why?
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Because the traditional approach to desktops is so tightly coupled to hardware, operating systems, and supporting applications.
Desktop Migrations: Hardware, Operating Systems and Applications Migrating hardware, operating systems and applications is very challenging as both the business requirements for technology (and the technology itself ) have become more complex. Failed migrations of hardware, operating systems or major applications have caused many companies significant loss in revenue, productivity, and employee morale. Even later service packs such as Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 reinforced that updates could not be sent untested or the business may risk losing critical applications and content. Vista introduces 31 categories of application compatibility issues that have caused many customers to wait to migrate to a newer OS version or to significantly delay the adoption until their next PC refresh cycle to reduce costs and impact to business continuity.
Systems Management Tools from Multiple Vendors A typical desktop system will ship with multiple vendor agents varying from configuration management to antivirus protection. This becomes even more complex during the global landscape of consolidation and mergers and acquisitions. More companies are now comprised of a conglomeration of multiple tools, packages types for each tool, and distribution mechanism that need to be adhered to, tested and supported for value realization. Additional integrations to agents on the endpoint can be cumbersome and exceed the costs of the software costs to setup, maintain, test, and deploy.
Security and Flexibility Since Sarbanes-Oxley was introduced and went into effect in July of 2002, a plethora of new regulations and directives have been passed to regulate IT and its impact on users and their systems. Security risks and malware have also created quite a stir in the corporate fabric due to the proliferation of viruses and malware. The standard approach to handle these new requirements is to lock down a user’s desktop but this approach comes at the cost of flexibility. Individuals cannot install applications that they need to be productive without admin rights or going through IT. With VMware ThinApp, enterprises can lock down the underlying OS but still give individual users to ability to run virtualized applications as needed.
VMware ThinApp: Architected for Change VMware ThinApp offers all of the robust capabilities of application virtualization today without the hassles of loading software on the end user device. This is called “agentless virtualization”. There is also no backend server infrastructure required, which for some large organizations with multiple sites can be quite costly. Agentless application virtualization is the key to enabling applications to be delivered across multiple operating system and devices types – enabling IT to provision based on the needs of the business and its users. VMware ThinApp pioneered the concept of agentless application virtualization as a hybrid approach to bridging the physical and virtual desktop while being non-disruptive to current processes and systems for audit and compliance. We invite you to take a look at our solutions, how customers are leveraging them, and a new approach to enable re-engineering desktops that are flexible and adaptable to change. VMware ThinApp eliminates application conflicts and securely packages applications for physical and virtual desktops. On the road or in the office, VMware ThinApp offers agentless application virtualization that plugs into your existing infrastructure – which enables you to deliver applications in a more efficient, secure and cost-effective manner. Customers who adopt VMware ThinApp accelerate time-to-value of applications in the development cycle. ThinApp saves time and costs by reducing the time it takes to create a package, eliminating interoperability and compatibility testing of applications, and reducing support calls.
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VMware ThinApp works with existing desktop management solutions and comes from the makers of the proven virtualization offering, VMware. Additionally, VMware ThinApp leverages existing configuration and desktop management tools. VMware ThinApp is MSI-compliant: VMware ThinApp packaged applications can be deployed to end users in the organization’s normal installation files. It works with BMC, SMS, LANDesk and others. VMware ThinApp runs 100% in User Mode on PCs so that applications can be deployed into locked down desktops (e.g. eliminating issues such as Vista UAC) with no admin rights. VMware ThinApp comes from VMware, makers of the proven virtualization platform and is one stop for the entire desktop or server virtualization solution. Also VMware offers 24x7 support and the experience with enterprise virtualization deployments that you would expect from VMware.
New Features in VMware ThinApp 4 VMware ThinApp is an improved and rebranded form of the popular Thinstall application virtualization technology. The VMware ThinApp 4 release has all the great functionality of Thinstall 3.x plus additional features, including Application Sync and Application Link plus VMware 5x12 Gold Support, 24x7 Platinum support and more. Application Sync. Enables administrators to deploy ThinApp application updates and having the users get updates automatically for their managed application. Updates might include changes such as a new version, service pack updates, new file(s) or configuration. Application Link. This allows the administrator to package individual applications that have interdependencies on other applications and link them together. For example, you can establish a relationship between a deployed instance of Microsoft Office 2003 and a new Microsoft Office plug-in. Application Link frees the administrator from creating a huge new application package containing all the applications together every time one of the interdependent application changes. Enhanced support and debugging capabilities. VMware ThinApp offers 5x12 Gold Support and 24x7 Platinum support. In addition, the VMware ThinApp 4.x release has added additional tools and utilities to enhance the debug and logging capabilities of the product. VMware Workstation is now part of the ThinApp Virtualization Suite. Added Workstation 6 to the VMware ThinApp Virtualization Suite to enable developers to leverage key features such as record/replay for creating their virtual package and best practices for their organization. Professional Services. VMware offers several professional services offerings to assist customers with accelerating the adoption of application virtualization throughout their company and the extended enterprise. • ThinApp Jumpstart. Two-day deep-dive workshop to enable IT organizations and partners to understand the detailed technical aspects of application virtualization, how to best utilize it in their environment and hands on packaging up to three of your applications. •
ThinApp Plan and Design. Approximately five-day plan and design workshop to aid partners and enterprise customers in their ThinApp infrastructure design to plug into existing desktop infrastructure.
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ThinApp Application Packaging Framework. Best practices for bulk application conversion, application naming convention, registering with application libraries (definitive software library or service catalog), and overall package management.
Usage Scenarios VMware ThinApp helps customers reduce costs, adhere to compliance and streamline the packaging process, making it possible to re-engineer desktops based on user roles and the business needs
Application Packaging: Delivering Conflict-Free Applications VMware ThinApp delivers applications free of conflict by encapsulating the application, all the necessary components to run the application, and the application itself into a virtual bubble. This enables delivery of the application in a standalone EXE or MSI file that not only works with newer operating systems but also eliminates conflicts between versions of the same application or multiple applications from breaking over shared resources in the installation and setup process. User data and personality information is stored in a separate sandbox that can embedded in the application, stored on a file server or network drive or recreated upon each deployment of the application.
Application Sync: Updating Critical Applications on Unmanaged PCs VMware ThinApp has enabled HTTP/HTTPS byte-level updates on a per-application basis for maintaining and updating critical applications that are located on mobile systems that many not be on the network, devices that are not supported by standard PC configuration tools such as USB flash drives, thin clients or partner/subsidiary systems. During this process the application checks into a Web server for updates to the application and will stream down only the deltas of changes for the application to the given endpoint. Figure 1 illustrates two different versions of the same application present on different hardware medium, one a USB flash drive, the other an off network laptop. When the ThinApp packaged application launched from the USB flash drive detects network connectivity via the companion PC it will download byte-level changes made to the application from its current version A to the desired version C found on the server.
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Figure 1. Packaging and Delivering Applications with VMware ThinApp
Application Link: Tying Virtual and Compliance Together Application Link is critical for the following areas: • Enable “side by side” (SxS) deployments with shared resources (.NET/Java). .NET and Java although necessary for many applications can still prove to be a security risk on the underlying operating system. Due to the nature of their size and consumption of key system resources most customers would prefer running a single virtualized version of the shared component that can be leveraged across multiple applications either different versions of the same application or different applications that require the same version of those sources. •
Software license tracking. this feature allows interdependent ThinApp packaged applications to communicate with one another to reduce the number of versions required on an endpoints and the ability to register correctly within WMI format for audit.
Figure 2. VMware ThinApp Application Link
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Leverage Existing Tools A vast majority of customers will have some built-in process for obtaining inventory, usage, and delivery information for applications into a centralized operational management database (OMD) or configuration management database (CMDB) or both that is driven off of policy based active directory. VMware ThinApp is architected to seamlessly work with the various systems management tools for tracking audit, compliance, and enforcing the distribution of virtual applications within their enterprise. The ThinApp packages can be configured to register with WMI – the same tool many PC configuration management vendors use to pull inventory and other key components required for compliance audits.
Figure 3. Electronic Software Distribution with VMware ThinApp
Enhancing Terminal Services and Network Shares VMware ThinApp enhances the overall usability while reducing risk of leveraging terminal services solutions or streaming applications from a network share to multiple users. VMware ThinApp application packages are delivered as a read-only file that have only User Mode privileges to the host operating system. Each user has their own sandbox created that stores their unique configuration files. One of the biggest risks to a terminal server environment is if a user accidentally corrupts a critical application while they are using it or trying to customize the configuration to meet their requirements. VMware ThinApp eliminates this risk by separating the user specific configuration data and settings from the application on the server. If a given user overwrites a specific configuration it will only save to their specific sandbox and not impact other users on the system. Furthermore, that user’s issue can be quickly remediated by clearing the user’s sandbox – a much simpler process then re-installing and configuring an application that impacts multiple users.
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Figure 4. Using VMware ThinApp with Citrix Presentation Server
Package Once, Deploy Anywhere VMware ThinApp’s agentless architecture was constructed to adapt to the changing needs of IT organizations. This future proof solution enables users to package an application once and deploy it across multiple device and OS types from a variety of mechanisms such as “self-service portals”, Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server), Terminal Services, PC configuration management vendors, network shares, or USB flash drives. There is no requirement for complex integrations to backend inventory, administrative, or other tools either on the server or client to enable the software in your current systems.
Figure 5. Packaging Once, Deploying to Many with VMware ThinApp
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Getting Started with VMware ThinApp What you will need to get started to review VMware ThinApp: •
VMware ThinApp software
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ThinApp product key
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Pristine installation of a Windows OS (see below for definition)
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USB flash drive (optional)
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VMware Workstation (optional)
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Web Server
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This Reviewer's Guide (this document, kept close by)
To get the software, product key and manual go to http://www.vmware.com/go/thinapp 1. Click on Download Now to download the executable. 2. Run the executable to install ThinApp. If you would like more detailed information about how to use VMware ThinApp, see our user manual at http://pubs.vmware.com/thinapp/help/
Supported platforms: •
32-bit platforms: Windows NT, 2000, 2000 Server, XP, XPE, 2003 Server, Vista
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64-bit platforms: Windows XP 64 bit, Windows 2003 64 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit
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16-bit applications running on 32-bit Windows operating systems.
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32-bit applications running on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems.
Not supported: •
Does not support 64-bit applications running on 32-bit or 64-bit Windows operating systems.
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Does not support 16-bit or non-Intel OS platforms such as Windows CE
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Does not support 16-bit applications running on 64-bit Windows operating systems.
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Applications requiring installation of kernel-mode device drivers (ODBC drivers work because they are user-mode)
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Products such as anti-virus and personal firewalls
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Scanner and printer drivers
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Some VPN clients
Pristine OS A pristine OS is Windows base OS installed and nothing else. In most corporate environments, the desktop administrator will have a base desktop image as their foundation for their application packages. This base image can be a VMware or a cloned image that allows the admin to quickly reset the base environment to create another ThinApp package.
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ThinApp Setup Capture application works by taking two separate snapshots of a PC’s file system and registry before and after the complete installation of an application. The VMware ThinApp project is created using the differences between the two snapshots. Using a pristine OS helps ensure that ThinApp will capture all the necessary changes during installation and will have an error free package. This is because most traditional application installers tend to skip files and registry entries that already exist on a PC. The easiest way to set up a pristine OS is to create a virtual machine and install a Windows OS using the defaults throughout the installation. After you have installed the OS into the virtual machine the first time we highly recommend that you take a snapshot of the entire virtual machine in its clean state. This process enables you to revert back to your clean state or “snapshot” whenever you are creating a new package. After you use VMware ThinApp’s Setup Capture to capture an application’s installation, you can restore the snapshot and revert the virtual machine to a pristine state, ready to capture a new application. VMware Workstation is included in your VMware ThinApp Suite as the preferred tool to use for your development and packaging environment. For information on how to install and configure VMware Workstation, see the VMware Workstation Virtual Machine Guide.
ThinApp Packaging Process Packaging Applications with VMware ThinApp Use the Setup Capture wizard to create and build your packaged application. The process will scan your machine two times. Once for the baseline and the second time to capture the changes that have taken place on the desktop machine. Set up a pristine OS if you do not already have one. NOTE: VMware recommends launching Setup Capture directly from a network share to ensure no changes are made to the local PC except by the installed application. Perform the following procedure to use Setup Capture: 1. From your network share or PC, launch Setup Capture.exe. This is located on C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp directory. To create a full capture of an application you should have a pristine Windows system for the lowest platform you need to support. For example, use Windows 2000 if you plan to support Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and Windows Vista. 2. Click Next to start the first scan. On a fast PC with a pristine OS the scan process should take approximately 10 seconds for Windows XP.
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3. When the scan finishes, install application. (If application requires a reboot, ThinApp will automatically continue where it left off.) 4. Select your user accessible entry points and click Next. NOTE: Entry points are the components of the application, utilities, and registry that you want included in the virtual application. For example, if you want to be able to see the command line run against the “virtual OS” encapsulated in the package you can select cmd.exe. 5. For more information on Active Directory Group settings, see “PermittedGroups” in the VMware ThinApp user manual. 6. Select Next for the defaults settings.
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7. Enter the directory where you want to save your package. Your package stores your captured software applications. A default directory is provided for you. 8. Check the box Build MSI Package. (This will create an MSI and EXE file.) 9. Select your compression option and click Next.
10. Select Merged isolation mode and click Next
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11. Click Next. Setup Capture saves your project. 12. In the final dialog box of the Setup Capture wizard, select from the following three options: •
Click Browse Project to look at the project files in Windows Explorer.
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Click Build Now to create an executable file containing the files you installed during the Setup Capture process. The build output is shown in the display box below the Build Now button.
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Click Finish to complete your work on the project.
This completes the Setup Capture process.
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Deploying Applications to PCs, Virtual Desktops and USB Flash Drives Now that you have created a package, you can use that application in a variety of different scenarios. You can make the application portable by making a small change to the package.ini file; deploy it to other desktops in your environment, to a locked down desktop, or on your virtual desktop image. To make the ThinApp application package portable (run on an USB flash drive), just go to the project directory, open the package.ini file and make the following edit within the file: SandboxRemovableDisk=1
1. Save the package.ini file and run build.bat to create another package from the project directory. NOTE: Rerun Build.bat every time a change has been made to the package.ini file to add those changes into your ThinApp package. 2. Copy the EXE files from the bin directory within your project directory to a folder on your USB flash drive. 3. Bring it to another machine in user mode and launch the exe file to run the application. ThinReg is a utility that allows the admin to register/unregistered the ThinApp EXE packages on a PC by creating Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, setting up file type associations, adding uninstall information for Add/Remove Applications in the control panel. ThinReg has to be run on the client machine. (Normally, an administrator adds the command in to a logon script for the user to automate this step.) For simplicity, copy the ThinReg.exe in the capture directory and copy it over to the bin directory. Navigate to the bin directory within CMD.exe. To register the packaged ThinApp application, use the following command: ThinReg.exe (applicationName.exe)
If you want to unregister the application, there are two choices. One is to go to Add/Remove Applications in the Control Panel to remove the application or run ThinReg.exe again with the following command: ThinReg.exe /u (applicationName.exe)
Now that you have experienced the portability of ThinApp, now run the MSI file on a PC. The .MSI can be run from a network share, website, or from PC. Double click on the .MSI file. With the MSI package, there is no need to run ThinReg. The ThinReg features are included into the MSI package.
Application Link You can use the Application Link feature in the package.ini file to configure relationships between applications you have packaged with VMware ThinApp. Following are several examples: • You can link runtime components to the applications that use them. For example, you can link a package containing Java runtime environment (JRE) or ODBC drivers to a package containing a browser application. •
You can link add-ons and plug-ins to applications. For example, Microsoft Office add-ons can be linked to applications or Adobe PhotoShop plug-ins can be linked to a package containing PhotoShop.
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You can link packaged applications to service packs. By using Application Link, you can upgrade or roll back your service packs by changing the service pack that you capture and link to its parent application.
Linking Packages with Application Link Perform the following steps to link applications with Application Link: 1. After you capture the application that you want to link, go to your captures folder. The default location is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\. 2. Open the directory that you have your captured application stored in and create a folder the package you want to link too. Give the directory a title that indicates the type of file you are linking to. For example, plugins . 3. Open your package.ini file and modify the Application Link settings to point to the linked package. The following settings are available in the package.ini file. NOTE: Application Link supports both URL and UNC path names. RequiredAppLinks –Specifies a package or list of packages to import into the current package at
runtime. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\*.exe OptionalAppLinks – Operates exactly like RequireAppLinks except that if an import fails to the load, the error is ignored and the main application will start executing.
For example: OptionalAppLinks=addons\*.exe
Link multiple applications by listing each one in the RequiredAppLinks or OptionalAppLinks parameters. Separate each individual linked application with a semicolon. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\first.exe; plugins\second.exe
You can also link applications in multiple directories. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\*.exe;addons\*.exe
Application Sync Application Sync enables you to automatically keep deployed ThinApp application packages up to date. When an application starts up, Application Sync can query a web server to see if an updated version of the package is available. If an update is available, the differences between the existing package and the new package will be downloaded and used to construct an updated version of the package. The updated package will be used for future deployments. This is true for both EXE and MSI ThinApp application packages. You can configure Application Sync by editing the package.ini file. To make changes, open your package.ini file. The default location of your package.ini file is the C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\ directory. Following are the default settings for Application Sync: AppSyncURL=https://example.com/some/path/PackageName.exe AppSyncUpdateFrequency=1d AppSyncExpirePeriod=30d AppSyncWarningPeriod=5d
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AppSyncWarningFrequency=1d AppSyncWarningMessage=This application will become unavailable for use in remaining_days10368826ay(s) if it cannot contact its update server. Check your network connection to ensure uninterrupted service AppSyncExpireMessage=This application has been unable to contact its update server for xpire_days0ay(s), so it is unavailable for use. Check your network connection and try again AppSyncUpdatedMessage= AppSyncClearSandboxOnUpdate=0
Once you have made the edits to your package.ini file, rebuild the application using build.bat. Take the ThinApp packaged application and put it up on your web server. Have a Windows machine launch this application and then close the application. Create another package of the same application with configuration changes or a newer version of the application. Post the updated application to the same location on your web server. Go back to the original machine and launch the application from the same URL. You now have an updated application.
Monitoring Inventory and Software Usage VMware does not have an inventory tool to capture application information, but ThinApp enables other inventory tools to grab the application information. Go to the project directory of your ThinApp packaged application and open your package.ini file. You will see the default name of the application in the package.ini file. You can edit the InventoryName section of the INI file if desired. For Example: [BuildOptions] InventoryName=Microsoft Office 2003
MSI applications will automatically register inventory information, but if you want an EXE to be registered you will need to run ThinReg.exe. ThinReg will add the inventory information to the OS so the third party software usage or inventory tool can pick up the application’s information. ThinReg.exe (applicationName.exe)
If you have a third-party inventory tool, run the scan on the machine with the ThinApp application installed on and you will find the application on the scanned machine.
Integrating ThinApp with Desktop Management Tools and Processes VMware ThinApp plugs into software delivery tools (BMC, Microsoft, Symantec, HP, CA, LANDesk, Matrix42 and more.) to maximize desktop efficiency and performance, as well as minimize operational and administrative costs. By virtualizing applications, sending them to the desktop in a single registered EXE or MSI file, and allowing SxS applications to be deployed without conflict, ThinApp is providing a reliable and secure desktop infrastructure. By virtualizing applications, sending them to the desktop in a single EXE file, and allowing SxS applications to be deployed without conflict, ThinApp is providing a reliable and secure desktop infrastructure. ThinApp allows a customer to deploy and manage applications in a consolidated infrastructure across an
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enterprise, including remote workers, and still support business services with deployment and support for the application operations in .NET, Windows and Vista environments.
Controlling Application Use and Maintaining License Compliance IT administrators can now better leverage their existing tools to inventory and track each separate application components according to their software license agreements. You can currently control access to ThinApp packaged applications through a few different mechanisms: •
Active Directory (Access Control Using Active Directory): In the package.ini file, you can specify which users groups are able run a specific package. Using Active Directory you can centrally add and remove people to groups as needed.
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VB Scripts (Scripting): This allows you to “roll-your-own” system. VB Script gives you a lot of power, and you can easily build hard-coded package times with a simple script. A sample VB script that expires packages on a specific date is available. You can also check for a specific machine registry key before allowing the user to run the application.
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VB Script can easily call any COM component that is registered in the virtual environment, so you can also write a C++ DLL that is called and executed by VB script before the program starts and after it shuts down.
Technology Overview What is Application Virtualization? Application virtualization decouples applications from the underlying operating system. This is done by abstracting operating system resources and presenting them to the application as virtual resources. The result is a single executable file that has the application and user settings, all encapsulated in one file, and can be copied to any hardware device or operating system. Similar to machine virtualization where a desktop virtual machine would contain the operating system, applications and settings in one file, application virtualization provides a higher degree of independence, isolation, and encapsulation than applications installed directly into an operating system environment. Application virtualization is highly complementary to machine virtualization and benefits increase by using both together.
How VMware ThinApp Works ThinApp works by using a build process to “link” the virtual operating system (VOS) with a compressed embedded file system and registry into a single executable file. The executable file can run with zero installation, and without decompressing files to disk, from any data source including a user’s desktop, a network path, or removable storage like USB flash drive and CD ROM. VMware ThinApp enables applications to run directly from slower speed storage devices such as USB flash drive or network shares in an efficient manner by using block-based streaming with transparent decompression. VMware ThinApp accomplishes “zero installation” by presenting a virtual environment to the running application, making it appear as if all of its files, registry entries, environment variables, COM/ActiveX controls, services, and so on are already installed on the PC, even though in reality, no changes have been made.
Advantages of ThinApp •
Deliver applications more rapidly. VMware ThinApp plugs seamlessly into existing infrastructures, requiring no additional client or server infrastructure.
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USB flash drive, PC blades and VDI environments. End users access any application from anywhere on virtually any device such as USB flash drive, thin clients, etc.
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Simplify installation and maintenance. One file to copy and NO AGENTS on the client or backend infrastructure.
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For desktop. Less regression testing and improvements to the overall application development lifecycle.
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Eliminates application conflicts. VMware ThinApp virtual applications are isolated from the physical operating system and can execute locally on a PC without any changes or modifications to the desktop.
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Lock down applications running on remote PCs. VMware ThinApp runs 100% in User Mode on PCs so that applications can be delivered to a locked down PC without requiring local administrator rights.
How ThinApp works with other VMware Products ThinApp and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) VMware ThinApp enables organizations to create fewer desktop images by developing a basic image and allowing after-the-fact deployment of applications into those images with no retesting needed of those images. Fewer VMware VDI desktop images means less images to configure, test, and maintain. It’s also easier to upgrade an OS without so many applications inside the desktop.
ThinApp and VMware Workstation The VMware ThinApp Suite includes VMware Workstation because VMware Workstation is needed to create a clean desktop virtual machine before creating the virtual applications that will be deployed or maintained on a file server.
ThinApp and VMware ACE VMware ACE encapsulates an entire desktop (operating system, applications and configurations), as opposed to an application with VMware ThinApp. With ACE, organizations can deploy applications inside of desktop images and lock them down. VMware ThinApp can help with application conflicts where it may be difficult to deploy two conflicting applications inside the same desktop image. Also, VMware ThinApp enables organizations to deploy ACE packages that have a reduced number of applications and later or simultaneously deploy VMware ThinApp applications without the compatibility hassles.
About VMware VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.33 billion, more than 100,000 customers and nearly 14,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest-growing public software companies. VMware is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and on the Web at www.vmware.com. Contact information: http://www.vmware.com/go/thinstall Phone: 1-877-4VMWARE (486-9273) 3401 Hillview Ave Palo Alto, CA 94304
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Contents OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................................................................................1 CHALLENGES DRIVING THE EVOLUTION OF THE DESKTOP ........................................................................................................................................................1 Decouple Applications from Desktop Images .......................................................................................................................................................1 Desktop Migrations: Hardware, Operating Systems and Applications......................................................................................................2 Systems Management Tools from Multiple Vendors..........................................................................................................................................2 Security and Flexibility......................................................................................................................................................................................................2 VMWARE THINAPP: ARCHITECTED FOR CHANGE .......................................................................................................................................................................2 New Features in VMware ThinApp 4..........................................................................................................................................................................3 Usage Scenarios..................................................................................................................................................................................................................4 GETTING STARTED WITH VMWARE THINAPP ....................................................................................................................8 WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO GET STARTED TO REVIEW VMWARE THINAPP: ............................................................................................................................8 Supported platforms:........................................................................................................................................................................................................8 Not supported:.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 Pristine OS..............................................................................................................................................................................................................................8 THINAPP PACKAGING PROCESS...........................................................................................................................................9 PACKAGING APPLICATIONS WITH VMWARE THINAPP ...............................................................................................................................................................9 DEPLOYING APPLICATIONS TO PCS, VIRTUAL DESKTOPS AND USB FLASH DRIVES.......................................................................................................13 Application Link ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Application Sync.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 14 MONITORING INVENTORY AND SOFTWARE USAGE..................................................................................................................................................................15 INTEGRATING THINAPP WITH DESKTOP MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND PROCESSES ...........................................................................................................15 CONTROLLING APPLICATION USE AND MAINTAINING LICENSE COMPLIANCE ................................................................................................................16 TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW................................................................................................................................................... 16 WHAT IS APPLICATION VIRTUALIZATION? ..................................................................................................................................................................................16 HOW VMWARE THINAPP WORKS ................................................................................................................................................................................................16 ADVANTAGES OF THINAPP .............................................................................................................................................................................................................16 HOW THINAPP WORKS WITH OTHER VMWARE PRODUCTS...................................................................................................................................................17 ThinApp and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).......................................................................................................................... 17 ThinApp and VMware Workstation......................................................................................................................................................................... 17 ThinApp and VMware ACE.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 17 ABOUT VMWARE .................................................................................................................................................................. 17
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Overview Maintaining agility in today’s global economy is critical to ongoing business success. Agility in light of strict regulatory, security and contract restrictions is often difficult to achieve in economies of scale with traditional desktop and application configurations. Application virtualization augments both traditional and virtual desktop solutions by abstracting applications from their underlying operating systems to enable the mobile worker to move about the globe at the speed of business. Just as VMware virtual machine technology decouples the operating system from hardware, VMware ThinApp (formerly Thinstall) breaks the bond between software applications and operating systems to deliver the same benefits of flexibility, portability and isolation. ThinApp offers agentless application virtualization and plugs directly into existing IT tools and processes, enabling corporate IT organizations and ISVs to deliver encapsulated applications across a variety of similar OS versions (NT, XP, Vista) so that applications can move with users as needed without violating corporate policies. VMware ThinApp has over seven years of product development and over a million deployed seats. The speed at which VMware has been able to integrate the Thinstall product and company into the desktop family of products is a true testament to our dedication to this space and flexibility of the original Thinstall technology. Key ThinApp agentless application virtualization advantages: •
Eliminate application conflicts to ease Vista Migrations
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Accelerate and streamline the development and delivery process.
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Leverage and enhance existing infrastructure and management tools.
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Deploy portable applications to virtually any PC (physical and virtual), thin client or USB flash drive while maintaining compliance.
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Lock down endpoints (such as PCs) without restructuring the use of critical applications.
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No server or new administration tools to integrate to or learn.
ThinApp pioneered the agentless application virtualization approach based on their more then 1000 customers and a million deployed endpoints. Unlike other tools, agentless application virtualization installs nothing on the underlying file system – eliminating security risks from agents that require Administrative rights.
Challenges Driving the Evolution of the Desktop Use of virtualization for both servers and desktops has grown exponentially over the last five years primarily due to the changing face of IT and the ongoing challenges it faces trying to address the needs of the business. Although IT organizations can maintain many of the processes, policies and procedures; the monolithic desktops in which they support have made it hard to drive the technology or people elements of business service management. As CIOs, CTOs and IT managers are being pressured to reduce costs, maintain compliance and address the needs of a mobile workforce, there is a growing need to regain control of corporate desktops and data.
Decouple Applications from Desktop Images For years both PC configuration management vendors and enterprises have been challenged to enable and provide an answer to the business’ growing demand to provide applications, hardware, and connectivity provisioned based on user roles and business requirements with limited success. Why?
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Because the traditional approach to desktops is so tightly coupled to hardware, operating systems, and supporting applications.
Desktop Migrations: Hardware, Operating Systems and Applications Migrating hardware, operating systems and applications is very challenging as both the business requirements for technology (and the technology itself ) have become more complex. Failed migrations of hardware, operating systems or major applications have caused many companies significant loss in revenue, productivity, and employee morale. Even later service packs such as Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 reinforced that updates could not be sent untested or the business may risk losing critical applications and content. Vista introduces 31 categories of application compatibility issues that have caused many customers to wait to migrate to a newer OS version or to significantly delay the adoption until their next PC refresh cycle to reduce costs and impact to business continuity.
Systems Management Tools from Multiple Vendors A typical desktop system will ship with multiple vendor agents varying from configuration management to antivirus protection. This becomes even more complex during the global landscape of consolidation and mergers and acquisitions. More companies are now comprised of a conglomeration of multiple tools, packages types for each tool, and distribution mechanism that need to be adhered to, tested and supported for value realization. Additional integrations to agents on the endpoint can be cumbersome and exceed the costs of the software costs to setup, maintain, test, and deploy.
Security and Flexibility Since Sarbanes-Oxley was introduced and went into effect in July of 2002, a plethora of new regulations and directives have been passed to regulate IT and its impact on users and their systems. Security risks and malware have also created quite a stir in the corporate fabric due to the proliferation of viruses and malware. The standard approach to handle these new requirements is to lock down a user’s desktop but this approach comes at the cost of flexibility. Individuals cannot install applications that they need to be productive without admin rights or going through IT. With VMware ThinApp, enterprises can lock down the underlying OS but still give individual users to ability to run virtualized applications as needed.
VMware ThinApp: Architected for Change VMware ThinApp offers all of the robust capabilities of application virtualization today without the hassles of loading software on the end user device. This is called “agentless virtualization”. There is also no backend server infrastructure required, which for some large organizations with multiple sites can be quite costly. Agentless application virtualization is the key to enabling applications to be delivered across multiple operating system and devices types – enabling IT to provision based on the needs of the business and its users. VMware ThinApp pioneered the concept of agentless application virtualization as a hybrid approach to bridging the physical and virtual desktop while being non-disruptive to current processes and systems for audit and compliance. We invite you to take a look at our solutions, how customers are leveraging them, and a new approach to enable re-engineering desktops that are flexible and adaptable to change. VMware ThinApp eliminates application conflicts and securely packages applications for physical and virtual desktops. On the road or in the office, VMware ThinApp offers agentless application virtualization that plugs into your existing infrastructure – which enables you to deliver applications in a more efficient, secure and cost-effective manner. Customers who adopt VMware ThinApp accelerate time-to-value of applications in the development cycle. ThinApp saves time and costs by reducing the time it takes to create a package, eliminating interoperability and compatibility testing of applications, and reducing support calls.
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VMware ThinApp works with existing desktop management solutions and comes from the makers of the proven virtualization offering, VMware. Additionally, VMware ThinApp leverages existing configuration and desktop management tools. VMware ThinApp is MSI-compliant: VMware ThinApp packaged applications can be deployed to end users in the organization’s normal installation files. It works with BMC, SMS, LANDesk and others. VMware ThinApp runs 100% in User Mode on PCs so that applications can be deployed into locked down desktops (e.g. eliminating issues such as Vista UAC) with no admin rights. VMware ThinApp comes from VMware, makers of the proven virtualization platform and is one stop for the entire desktop or server virtualization solution. Also VMware offers 24x7 support and the experience with enterprise virtualization deployments that you would expect from VMware.
New Features in VMware ThinApp 4 VMware ThinApp is an improved and rebranded form of the popular Thinstall application virtualization technology. The VMware ThinApp 4 release has all the great functionality of Thinstall 3.x plus additional features, including Application Sync and Application Link plus VMware 5x12 Gold Support, 24x7 Platinum support and more. Application Sync. Enables administrators to deploy ThinApp application updates and having the users get updates automatically for their managed application. Updates might include changes such as a new version, service pack updates, new file(s) or configuration. Application Link. This allows the administrator to package individual applications that have interdependencies on other applications and link them together. For example, you can establish a relationship between a deployed instance of Microsoft Office 2003 and a new Microsoft Office plug-in. Application Link frees the administrator from creating a huge new application package containing all the applications together every time one of the interdependent application changes. Enhanced support and debugging capabilities. VMware ThinApp offers 5x12 Gold Support and 24x7 Platinum support. In addition, the VMware ThinApp 4.x release has added additional tools and utilities to enhance the debug and logging capabilities of the product. VMware Workstation is now part of the ThinApp Virtualization Suite. Added Workstation 6 to the VMware ThinApp Virtualization Suite to enable developers to leverage key features such as record/replay for creating their virtual package and best practices for their organization. Professional Services. VMware offers several professional services offerings to assist customers with accelerating the adoption of application virtualization throughout their company and the extended enterprise. • ThinApp Jumpstart. Two-day deep-dive workshop to enable IT organizations and partners to understand the detailed technical aspects of application virtualization, how to best utilize it in their environment and hands on packaging up to three of your applications. •
ThinApp Plan and Design. Approximately five-day plan and design workshop to aid partners and enterprise customers in their ThinApp infrastructure design to plug into existing desktop infrastructure.
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ThinApp Application Packaging Framework. Best practices for bulk application conversion, application naming convention, registering with application libraries (definitive software library or service catalog), and overall package management.
Usage Scenarios VMware ThinApp helps customers reduce costs, adhere to compliance and streamline the packaging process, making it possible to re-engineer desktops based on user roles and the business needs
Application Packaging: Delivering Conflict-Free Applications VMware ThinApp delivers applications free of conflict by encapsulating the application, all the necessary components to run the application, and the application itself into a virtual bubble. This enables delivery of the application in a standalone EXE or MSI file that not only works with newer operating systems but also eliminates conflicts between versions of the same application or multiple applications from breaking over shared resources in the installation and setup process. User data and personality information is stored in a separate sandbox that can embedded in the application, stored on a file server or network drive or recreated upon each deployment of the application.
Application Sync: Updating Critical Applications on Unmanaged PCs VMware ThinApp has enabled HTTP/HTTPS byte-level updates on a per-application basis for maintaining and updating critical applications that are located on mobile systems that many not be on the network, devices that are not supported by standard PC configuration tools such as USB flash drives, thin clients or partner/subsidiary systems. During this process the application checks into a Web server for updates to the application and will stream down only the deltas of changes for the application to the given endpoint. Figure 1 illustrates two different versions of the same application present on different hardware medium, one a USB flash drive, the other an off network laptop. When the ThinApp packaged application launched from the USB flash drive detects network connectivity via the companion PC it will download byte-level changes made to the application from its current version A to the desired version C found on the server.
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Figure 1. Packaging and Delivering Applications with VMware ThinApp
Application Link: Tying Virtual and Compliance Together Application Link is critical for the following areas: • Enable “side by side” (SxS) deployments with shared resources (.NET/Java). .NET and Java although necessary for many applications can still prove to be a security risk on the underlying operating system. Due to the nature of their size and consumption of key system resources most customers would prefer running a single virtualized version of the shared component that can be leveraged across multiple applications either different versions of the same application or different applications that require the same version of those sources. •
Software license tracking. this feature allows interdependent ThinApp packaged applications to communicate with one another to reduce the number of versions required on an endpoints and the ability to register correctly within WMI format for audit.
Figure 2. VMware ThinApp Application Link
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Leverage Existing Tools A vast majority of customers will have some built-in process for obtaining inventory, usage, and delivery information for applications into a centralized operational management database (OMD) or configuration management database (CMDB) or both that is driven off of policy based active directory. VMware ThinApp is architected to seamlessly work with the various systems management tools for tracking audit, compliance, and enforcing the distribution of virtual applications within their enterprise. The ThinApp packages can be configured to register with WMI – the same tool many PC configuration management vendors use to pull inventory and other key components required for compliance audits.
Figure 3. Electronic Software Distribution with VMware ThinApp
Enhancing Terminal Services and Network Shares VMware ThinApp enhances the overall usability while reducing risk of leveraging terminal services solutions or streaming applications from a network share to multiple users. VMware ThinApp application packages are delivered as a read-only file that have only User Mode privileges to the host operating system. Each user has their own sandbox created that stores their unique configuration files. One of the biggest risks to a terminal server environment is if a user accidentally corrupts a critical application while they are using it or trying to customize the configuration to meet their requirements. VMware ThinApp eliminates this risk by separating the user specific configuration data and settings from the application on the server. If a given user overwrites a specific configuration it will only save to their specific sandbox and not impact other users on the system. Furthermore, that user’s issue can be quickly remediated by clearing the user’s sandbox – a much simpler process then re-installing and configuring an application that impacts multiple users.
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Figure 4. Using VMware ThinApp with Citrix Presentation Server
Package Once, Deploy Anywhere VMware ThinApp’s agentless architecture was constructed to adapt to the changing needs of IT organizations. This future proof solution enables users to package an application once and deploy it across multiple device and OS types from a variety of mechanisms such as “self-service portals”, Citrix XenApp (Presentation Server), Terminal Services, PC configuration management vendors, network shares, or USB flash drives. There is no requirement for complex integrations to backend inventory, administrative, or other tools either on the server or client to enable the software in your current systems.
Figure 5. Packaging Once, Deploying to Many with VMware ThinApp
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Getting Started with VMware ThinApp What you will need to get started to review VMware ThinApp: •
VMware ThinApp software
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ThinApp product key
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Pristine installation of a Windows OS (see below for definition)
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USB flash drive (optional)
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VMware Workstation (optional)
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Web Server
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This Reviewer's Guide (this document, kept close by)
To get the software, product key and manual go to http://www.vmware.com/go/thinapp 1. Click on Download Now to download the executable. 2. Run the executable to install ThinApp. If you would like more detailed information about how to use VMware ThinApp, see our user manual at http://pubs.vmware.com/thinapp/help/
Supported platforms: •
32-bit platforms: Windows NT, 2000, 2000 Server, XP, XPE, 2003 Server, Vista
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64-bit platforms: Windows XP 64 bit, Windows 2003 64 bit, Windows Vista 64 bit
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16-bit applications running on 32-bit Windows operating systems.
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32-bit applications running on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems.
Not supported: •
Does not support 64-bit applications running on 32-bit or 64-bit Windows operating systems.
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Does not support 16-bit or non-Intel OS platforms such as Windows CE
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Does not support 16-bit applications running on 64-bit Windows operating systems.
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Applications requiring installation of kernel-mode device drivers (ODBC drivers work because they are user-mode)
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Products such as anti-virus and personal firewalls
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Scanner and printer drivers
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Some VPN clients
Pristine OS A pristine OS is Windows base OS installed and nothing else. In most corporate environments, the desktop administrator will have a base desktop image as their foundation for their application packages. This base image can be a VMware or a cloned image that allows the admin to quickly reset the base environment to create another ThinApp package.
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ThinApp Setup Capture application works by taking two separate snapshots of a PC’s file system and registry before and after the complete installation of an application. The VMware ThinApp project is created using the differences between the two snapshots. Using a pristine OS helps ensure that ThinApp will capture all the necessary changes during installation and will have an error free package. This is because most traditional application installers tend to skip files and registry entries that already exist on a PC. The easiest way to set up a pristine OS is to create a virtual machine and install a Windows OS using the defaults throughout the installation. After you have installed the OS into the virtual machine the first time we highly recommend that you take a snapshot of the entire virtual machine in its clean state. This process enables you to revert back to your clean state or “snapshot” whenever you are creating a new package. After you use VMware ThinApp’s Setup Capture to capture an application’s installation, you can restore the snapshot and revert the virtual machine to a pristine state, ready to capture a new application. VMware Workstation is included in your VMware ThinApp Suite as the preferred tool to use for your development and packaging environment. For information on how to install and configure VMware Workstation, see the VMware Workstation Virtual Machine Guide.
ThinApp Packaging Process Packaging Applications with VMware ThinApp Use the Setup Capture wizard to create and build your packaged application. The process will scan your machine two times. Once for the baseline and the second time to capture the changes that have taken place on the desktop machine. Set up a pristine OS if you do not already have one. NOTE: VMware recommends launching Setup Capture directly from a network share to ensure no changes are made to the local PC except by the installed application. Perform the following procedure to use Setup Capture: 1. From your network share or PC, launch Setup Capture.exe. This is located on C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp directory. To create a full capture of an application you should have a pristine Windows system for the lowest platform you need to support. For example, use Windows 2000 if you plan to support Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, and Windows Vista. 2. Click Next to start the first scan. On a fast PC with a pristine OS the scan process should take approximately 10 seconds for Windows XP.
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3. When the scan finishes, install application. (If application requires a reboot, ThinApp will automatically continue where it left off.) 4. Select your user accessible entry points and click Next. NOTE: Entry points are the components of the application, utilities, and registry that you want included in the virtual application. For example, if you want to be able to see the command line run against the “virtual OS” encapsulated in the package you can select cmd.exe. 5. For more information on Active Directory Group settings, see “PermittedGroups” in the VMware ThinApp user manual. 6. Select Next for the defaults settings.
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7. Enter the directory where you want to save your package. Your package stores your captured software applications. A default directory is provided for you. 8. Check the box Build MSI Package. (This will create an MSI and EXE file.) 9. Select your compression option and click Next.
10. Select Merged isolation mode and click Next
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11. Click Next. Setup Capture saves your project. 12. In the final dialog box of the Setup Capture wizard, select from the following three options: •
Click Browse Project to look at the project files in Windows Explorer.
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Click Build Now to create an executable file containing the files you installed during the Setup Capture process. The build output is shown in the display box below the Build Now button.
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Click Finish to complete your work on the project.
This completes the Setup Capture process.
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Deploying Applications to PCs, Virtual Desktops and USB Flash Drives Now that you have created a package, you can use that application in a variety of different scenarios. You can make the application portable by making a small change to the package.ini file; deploy it to other desktops in your environment, to a locked down desktop, or on your virtual desktop image. To make the ThinApp application package portable (run on an USB flash drive), just go to the project directory, open the package.ini file and make the following edit within the file: SandboxRemovableDisk=1
1. Save the package.ini file and run build.bat to create another package from the project directory. NOTE: Rerun Build.bat every time a change has been made to the package.ini file to add those changes into your ThinApp package. 2. Copy the EXE files from the bin directory within your project directory to a folder on your USB flash drive. 3. Bring it to another machine in user mode and launch the exe file to run the application. ThinReg is a utility that allows the admin to register/unregistered the ThinApp EXE packages on a PC by creating Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, setting up file type associations, adding uninstall information for Add/Remove Applications in the control panel. ThinReg has to be run on the client machine. (Normally, an administrator adds the command in to a logon script for the user to automate this step.) For simplicity, copy the ThinReg.exe in the capture directory and copy it over to the bin directory. Navigate to the bin directory within CMD.exe. To register the packaged ThinApp application, use the following command: ThinReg.exe (applicationName.exe)
If you want to unregister the application, there are two choices. One is to go to Add/Remove Applications in the Control Panel to remove the application or run ThinReg.exe again with the following command: ThinReg.exe /u (applicationName.exe)
Now that you have experienced the portability of ThinApp, now run the MSI file on a PC. The .MSI can be run from a network share, website, or from PC. Double click on the .MSI file. With the MSI package, there is no need to run ThinReg. The ThinReg features are included into the MSI package.
Application Link You can use the Application Link feature in the package.ini file to configure relationships between applications you have packaged with VMware ThinApp. Following are several examples: • You can link runtime components to the applications that use them. For example, you can link a package containing Java runtime environment (JRE) or ODBC drivers to a package containing a browser application. •
You can link add-ons and plug-ins to applications. For example, Microsoft Office add-ons can be linked to applications or Adobe PhotoShop plug-ins can be linked to a package containing PhotoShop.
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You can link packaged applications to service packs. By using Application Link, you can upgrade or roll back your service packs by changing the service pack that you capture and link to its parent application.
Linking Packages with Application Link Perform the following steps to link applications with Application Link: 1. After you capture the application that you want to link, go to your captures folder. The default location is C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\. 2. Open the directory that you have your captured application stored in and create a folder the package you want to link too. Give the directory a title that indicates the type of file you are linking to. For example, plugins . 3. Open your package.ini file and modify the Application Link settings to point to the linked package. The following settings are available in the package.ini file. NOTE: Application Link supports both URL and UNC path names. RequiredAppLinks –Specifies a package or list of packages to import into the current package at
runtime. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\*.exe OptionalAppLinks – Operates exactly like RequireAppLinks except that if an import fails to the load, the error is ignored and the main application will start executing.
For example: OptionalAppLinks=addons\*.exe
Link multiple applications by listing each one in the RequiredAppLinks or OptionalAppLinks parameters. Separate each individual linked application with a semicolon. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\first.exe; plugins\second.exe
You can also link applications in multiple directories. For example: RequiredAppLinks=plugins\*.exe;addons\*.exe
Application Sync Application Sync enables you to automatically keep deployed ThinApp application packages up to date. When an application starts up, Application Sync can query a web server to see if an updated version of the package is available. If an update is available, the differences between the existing package and the new package will be downloaded and used to construct an updated version of the package. The updated package will be used for future deployments. This is true for both EXE and MSI ThinApp application packages. You can configure Application Sync by editing the package.ini file. To make changes, open your package.ini file. The default location of your package.ini file is the C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\ directory. Following are the default settings for Application Sync: AppSyncURL=https://example.com/some/path/PackageName.exe AppSyncUpdateFrequency=1d AppSyncExpirePeriod=30d AppSyncWarningPeriod=5d
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AppSyncWarningFrequency=1d AppSyncWarningMessage=This application will become unavailable for use in remaining_days10368826ay(s) if it cannot contact its update server. Check your network connection to ensure uninterrupted service AppSyncExpireMessage=This application has been unable to contact its update server for xpire_days0ay(s), so it is unavailable for use. Check your network connection and try again AppSyncUpdatedMessage= AppSyncClearSandboxOnUpdate=0
Once you have made the edits to your package.ini file, rebuild the application using build.bat. Take the ThinApp packaged application and put it up on your web server. Have a Windows machine launch this application and then close the application. Create another package of the same application with configuration changes or a newer version of the application. Post the updated application to the same location on your web server. Go back to the original machine and launch the application from the same URL. You now have an updated application.
Monitoring Inventory and Software Usage VMware does not have an inventory tool to capture application information, but ThinApp enables other inventory tools to grab the application information. Go to the project directory of your ThinApp packaged application and open your package.ini file. You will see the default name of the application in the package.ini file. You can edit the InventoryName section of the INI file if desired. For Example: [BuildOptions] InventoryName=Microsoft Office 2003
MSI applications will automatically register inventory information, but if you want an EXE to be registered you will need to run ThinReg.exe. ThinReg will add the inventory information to the OS so the third party software usage or inventory tool can pick up the application’s information. ThinReg.exe (applicationName.exe)
If you have a third-party inventory tool, run the scan on the machine with the ThinApp application installed on and you will find the application on the scanned machine.
Integrating ThinApp with Desktop Management Tools and Processes VMware ThinApp plugs into software delivery tools (BMC, Microsoft, Symantec, HP, CA, LANDesk, Matrix42 and more.) to maximize desktop efficiency and performance, as well as minimize operational and administrative costs. By virtualizing applications, sending them to the desktop in a single registered EXE or MSI file, and allowing SxS applications to be deployed without conflict, ThinApp is providing a reliable and secure desktop infrastructure. By virtualizing applications, sending them to the desktop in a single EXE file, and allowing SxS applications to be deployed without conflict, ThinApp is providing a reliable and secure desktop infrastructure. ThinApp allows a customer to deploy and manage applications in a consolidated infrastructure across an
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enterprise, including remote workers, and still support business services with deployment and support for the application operations in .NET, Windows and Vista environments.
Controlling Application Use and Maintaining License Compliance IT administrators can now better leverage their existing tools to inventory and track each separate application components according to their software license agreements. You can currently control access to ThinApp packaged applications through a few different mechanisms: •
Active Directory (Access Control Using Active Directory): In the package.ini file, you can specify which users groups are able run a specific package. Using Active Directory you can centrally add and remove people to groups as needed.
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VB Scripts (Scripting): This allows you to “roll-your-own” system. VB Script gives you a lot of power, and you can easily build hard-coded package times with a simple script. A sample VB script that expires packages on a specific date is available. You can also check for a specific machine registry key before allowing the user to run the application.
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VB Script can easily call any COM component that is registered in the virtual environment, so you can also write a C++ DLL that is called and executed by VB script before the program starts and after it shuts down.
Technology Overview What is Application Virtualization? Application virtualization decouples applications from the underlying operating system. This is done by abstracting operating system resources and presenting them to the application as virtual resources. The result is a single executable file that has the application and user settings, all encapsulated in one file, and can be copied to any hardware device or operating system. Similar to machine virtualization where a desktop virtual machine would contain the operating system, applications and settings in one file, application virtualization provides a higher degree of independence, isolation, and encapsulation than applications installed directly into an operating system environment. Application virtualization is highly complementary to machine virtualization and benefits increase by using both together.
How VMware ThinApp Works ThinApp works by using a build process to “link” the virtual operating system (VOS) with a compressed embedded file system and registry into a single executable file. The executable file can run with zero installation, and without decompressing files to disk, from any data source including a user’s desktop, a network path, or removable storage like USB flash drive and CD ROM. VMware ThinApp enables applications to run directly from slower speed storage devices such as USB flash drive or network shares in an efficient manner by using block-based streaming with transparent decompression. VMware ThinApp accomplishes “zero installation” by presenting a virtual environment to the running application, making it appear as if all of its files, registry entries, environment variables, COM/ActiveX controls, services, and so on are already installed on the PC, even though in reality, no changes have been made.
Advantages of ThinApp •
Deliver applications more rapidly. VMware ThinApp plugs seamlessly into existing infrastructures, requiring no additional client or server infrastructure.
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ThinApp 4.0 Reviewer’s Guide
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USB flash drive, PC blades and VDI environments. End users access any application from anywhere on virtually any device such as USB flash drive, thin clients, etc.
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Simplify installation and maintenance. One file to copy and NO AGENTS on the client or backend infrastructure.
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For desktop. Less regression testing and improvements to the overall application development lifecycle.
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Eliminates application conflicts. VMware ThinApp virtual applications are isolated from the physical operating system and can execute locally on a PC without any changes or modifications to the desktop.
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Lock down applications running on remote PCs. VMware ThinApp runs 100% in User Mode on PCs so that applications can be delivered to a locked down PC without requiring local administrator rights.
How ThinApp works with other VMware Products ThinApp and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) VMware ThinApp enables organizations to create fewer desktop images by developing a basic image and allowing after-the-fact deployment of applications into those images with no retesting needed of those images. Fewer VMware VDI desktop images means less images to configure, test, and maintain. It’s also easier to upgrade an OS without so many applications inside the desktop.
ThinApp and VMware Workstation The VMware ThinApp Suite includes VMware Workstation because VMware Workstation is needed to create a clean desktop virtual machine before creating the virtual applications that will be deployed or maintained on a file server.
ThinApp and VMware ACE VMware ACE encapsulates an entire desktop (operating system, applications and configurations), as opposed to an application with VMware ThinApp. With ACE, organizations can deploy applications inside of desktop images and lock them down. VMware ThinApp can help with application conflicts where it may be difficult to deploy two conflicting applications inside the same desktop image. Also, VMware ThinApp enables organizations to deploy ACE packages that have a reduced number of applications and later or simultaneously deploy VMware ThinApp applications without the compatibility hassles.
About VMware VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.33 billion, more than 100,000 customers and nearly 14,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest-growing public software companies. VMware is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and on the Web at www.vmware.com. Contact information: http://www.vmware.com/go/thinstall Phone: 1-877-4VMWARE (486-9273) 3401 Hillview Ave Palo Alto, CA 94304
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