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Virtualizing Microsoft Office 2010 on German Windows XP

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There is quite a few blog posts and KB articles describing how to virtualize Microsoft Office 2010 with the help of ThinApp.

KB articles:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2021901
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022287

A blog post:
http://thinappguru.blogspot.se/2012/03/notes-on-packaging-office-project-and.html

If you have Office locally installed but need to virtualize Project or Visio (many steps are the same as for Office 2010):
http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2013/02/thinapp-microsoft-visio-and-project-2010-while-locally-installed-microsoft-office-2010.html

Additional information for German Windows XP:
If you follow the procedures described in above posts your package should work very well on an English OS. Jonathan Wilk (@DooDleWilk), Escalation Engineer at VMware Global Support Services, just sent me his notes working on a case. The package worked just fine on English Operating Systems and German Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit) but failed on a German Windows XP.

After some troubleshooting he realized that on an English Windows XP the OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform folder is located in the “Documents and Settings” folder. On a German Windows XP the folder is called “Dokumente und Einstellungen”. So the workaround was simply to create the “Dokumente und Einstellungen” folder underneath the %Drive_C% folder macro and copy the content from your “Documents and Settings” folder. Rebuild and it works.

I wouldn’t be surprised if other applications will have the same issue and therefore would need the same fix in order to be portable.

ThinApp MSI without Project Folders

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I have come across a scenario where the customer has lost the ThinApp project folders and left with ThinApp EXE. As the project folders are required to generate MSI, the package could not be deployed with VMware View due to missing MSI. Instead of recapturing the application to generate MSI, the solution proposed below shall allow tweaking another ThinApp MSI (where MSIStreaming=1 is set) by editing the respective MSI tables and contents. Continue reading →

Posted in MSI

ThinApp Puts On The Suit(e)

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Last week, VMware made some major announcements with regard to the arrival of the Horizon Suite and the new pricing and packaging framework to simplify and unite the VMware EUC technologies for our customers.  This is a milestone for EUC because it marks a concerted effort by VMware to streamline the adoption and implementation of products into a solution stack that customers can easily procure and implement.

One of the changes that was announced is that at the end of the year ThinApp will no longer be sold as a standalone product as in the past.  Unfortunately, the product support life cycle has limited terms of description so the ‘End of Availability’ announcement has caused some some concern as some interpreted this as EOA of the technology.  I apologize for the confusion and want to clarify that the EOA term ONLY applies to the standalone SKU as ThinApp will actually be included in ALL of the Horizon bundles - VMware Horizon View™, VMware Horizon Mirage™, VMware Horizon Workspace™ and VMware Horizon Suite™.  A good place to get a feel for the bundles can be found here - Horizon Suite.  Being included across the Horizon suite means that more customers than ever will be able to use the features and capabilities of ThinApp.  The Horizon licensing model still allows flexibility for ThinApp to be used on the desktop without any other products if that is the use case needed by the customer.

I highly encourage you to consider the affinity between Horizon Mirage and ThinApp as we now have the capability to address every application on the Windows desktop; if you need apps with drivers and remote DCOM then use Mirage application layers, if you need cross platform support or isolation then ThinApp containers are ideal.  Not only do these technologies cover 100% of the application list but Mirage is an ideal deployment mechanism for ThinApp containers as it can deliver ThinApps to the farthest endpoints without any dependence on branch infrastructure, Active Directory, or costly backend architecture.  Customers can deploy layers and containers and then inventory those endpoints for centralized management of both native and virtualized applications.

To be clear to our customers (and competitors), our commitment to ThinApp technology hasn’t changed as we are actively working on our next release for mid-year which will include some very tangible architectural and compatibility improvements.  Here is an FAQ that has been created which should help address any particular details.

ThinApp project folder cleaning up best practices

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I’m often asked about best practices when it comes to cleaning up the project folder. This is not a simple subject because it varies greatly depending on the application you captured. I’ve been discussing with myself how to best attack this task. I ended up deciding for a blog post but this one will have the comments functionality turned on. This way I hope you, the readers, will help me make this post better by adding your own experience. I will now and then merge comments into the original post for ease of consumption.
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ThinApp Microsoft Visio and Project 2010 while locally installed Microsoft Office 2010

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While many are virtualizing Microsoft Office 2010 during a Proof Of Concept (POC) most companies decide to install Microsoft Office natively rather than virtualizing it. Both packaging method are valid but many times it’s easier and more efficient to have Office locally installed. That said, virtualizing Microsoft Visio and Project is a whole different ballgame. Virtualizing Visio/Project makes very much sense in many designs. There are quite a few KB articles and blog posts out there covering Office 2010 and it’s components. But so far I’ve yet to see a complete list of what is needed in order to build a Visio/Project package and have it coexist and to a certain degree integrate with native Office. So I started to collect all data I found on Internet. I ended up adding a couple thinks myself as well.

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The . . . Definitive Guide for VMware ThinApp

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Over the last four years I’ve been working with customers and partners on articulating and demonstrating the value of VMware ThinApp.  While ThinApp does offer one of the most flexible and streamlined solutions for virtualizing Windows applications there are still times when you need to put the product knowledge and the application expert together to get the results you want.  That has now occurred in written (and ebook) form with the release of the definitive guide for VMware ThinApp.  The title, VMware ThinApp Essentials, much like the author, is understated as you will find the relevance of this book greatly exceeds the ‘essentials’.  Yes, the author is one of our own VMware employees, but see for yourself that Peter Bjork always speaks to the reality of the customer environment and the satisfaction of well-implemented technology.  Leverage Peter’s dedication to the technology, wide spectrum of application experience, and commitment to help you extract the most value out of your investment in application virtualization.

Using Horizon Application Manager to update ThinApp packages.

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Deploying ThinApps with the help of VMware Horizon Application Manager is a great method, but what about updating? Horizon supports updating ThinApp packages and this blog post will walk you through one method of doing that.
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Windows 8 Support with VMware ThinApp 4.7.3

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On behalf of VMware, I’d like to announce that we have released version 4.7.3 of VMware ThinApp.  The big headline for this release is enabling ThinApp packages to run across the broadest spectrum of operating systems from Windows XP to the recently released Windows 8.  We’ve also updated the ThinApp Factory Fling to include the 4.7.3 runtime so that you can automagically package with the most current ThinApp version. Lastly, the ThinApp SDK has been rev’d to keep up with those of you creating some integrated offerings or just streamlining the registration of ThinApp packages. (see other blog entries about how to use the SDK)

ThinApp 4.7.3 is now available @  http://bit.ly/Is2ZvV
Release Notes @  http://bit.ly/T662Mv
ThinApp 4.7.3 SDK @  http://bit.ly/oZJD7h
ThinApp Factory @ http://bit.ly/MOqVp1

As always, we invite you to evaluate ThinApp and see for yourself how virtualizing Windows applications can simplify delivery and management.

 

Horizon ThinApp Packages Generating Prompt

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Launching a ThinApp from Horizon Shows a Prompt for the First Time:

Do you or your users get an error “Do you want to allow this website to open a program on your computer?” prompt the first time they go to launch a ThinApp package in Horizon?

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ThinApp Icons Not Appearing in Horizon

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Often times we hear how someone is trying to publish a ThinApp Package via Horizon and not getting an icon. Continue reading →

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