VMware ThinApp 4.7 is an application virtualization solution which allows its admins to package Windows applications so that they are portable.
"VMware ThinApp 4.7 Essentials" shows you how to create and deploy ThinApp packages in order to improve the portability, manageability, and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed.
ThinApp eliminates application conflicts, reducing the need and cost of recoding and regression testing.
No matter if you are completely new to VMware ThinApp or an experienced ThinApp packager, this is the book for you. I've made an effort to make sure that everyone can learn something in each chapter. This book will cover everything needed to become a successful ThinApp packager. This book does not talk about the competition. I wanted this book to be technically oriented and so very little, if any, is of a non-technical nature.
Chapter 1, Application Virtualization, covers basic application virtualization concepts. It also covers important concepts like isolation modes, the sandbox, and much more.
Chapter 2, Application Packaging, explains the whole packaging process. It takes you through a simple packaging example, which you can easily perform yourself. Entry points and the data container are explained as well as how your packaging environment affects your packages..
Chapter 3, Deployment of ThinApp Packages, walks you through the different methods for deployment as it's now time to deploy the package to your end users. We cover ThinApp native methods of deployment as well as using VMware View and VMware Horizon Application Manager.
Chapter 4, Updating and Tweaking Your ThinApp Project, covers how to maintain your packages using different methods and helps you choose the appropriate method for different types of updates as after a while, all applications must be updated one way or another.
Chapter 5, How to Distribute Updates, covers how to deploy your newly created updated package. ThinApp offers many different methods, so a good portion is spent on helping you identify which methods to use for which update.
Chapter 6, Design and Implementation Considerations using ThinApp, outlines general implementation guidelines. The chapter goes through things you need to be aware of in order to successfully implement ThinApp in your environment.
Chapter 7, Troubleshooting, teaches you how to conduct efficient troubleshooting of ThinApp packages, since sometimes you may face an issue while trying to package a certain application. I have shared some tips and tricks that I've picked up from my many years of ThinApp packaging.
Appendix, References, provides you with a complete Package.ini parameter reference as well as all folder macros, and environment variables supported by ThinApp.
If you want to perform the examples I use throughout this book yourself, you will need a couple of applications. You will need the following:
VMware ThinApp
You can download a free trial of VMware ThinApp from here: http://www.vmware.com/go/trythinapp.
VMware Workstation
You can download a free trial from: http://www.vmware.com/go/tryworkstation.
One Microsoft Windows XP and one Windows 7 virtual machine.
Installation media for the different applications that you want to package. I use Mozilla Firefox for most of my examples. I personally prefer the old Mozilla Firefox versions. You can download the old versions from here: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/
This book is for anyone who will work with ThinApp, or is interested in learning everything there is to know about ThinApp. It doesn't matter if you've never seen ThinApp before or have been using ThinApp for many years. I guarantee that everyone will learn something by reading this book.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: “Some folder macros share the same name as Windows variables such as %AppData% pointing to the users’ roaming profile.”
A block of code is set as follows:
[BuildOptions] OptionalAppLinks=C:\Plugins\LoadMeFirst.exe; C:\Plugins\LoadMeLast.exe
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
[BuildOptions]
OptionalAppLinks=C:\Plugins\LoadMeFirst.exe; C:\Plugins\LoadMeLast.exeAny command-line input or output is written as follows:
048200 00000000 00000a00 Can’t load library MSVCP50.dll which is implicitly loaded by C:\Application A\DLLIAP.dll, err=53
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: Clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen.
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