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Category Archives: Tips

ThinApp Tips

ThinApp and VMware User Environment Manager (UEM) integration

This blog post will explain how you can configure your ThinApp packages for integration with VMware UEM without using vb-script or any other black magic. When you have VMware UEM and ThinApp integrated users’ application settings flow seamlessly between both natively installed, published applications (Terminal Server/RDSH based) and ThinApp packaged applications. Using the integration you can centrally manage default and mandatory application settings also for ThinApp packages.
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How to package Internet Explorer 8

I’m getting more and more requests to package IE8 so I think it is about time to write a blog post on how to do it.. According to our Internet Explorer support statement (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2069870) packaged IE8 is supported by us and works on most platforms.

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Using VMware App Volumes with ThinApp Packages

By Dean Flaming, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager | Lighthouse & EUC Enablement, End-User Computing, VMware

With VMware’s acquisition of App Volumes (formerly known as CloudVolumes), customers now have another option for deploying VMware ThinApp packaged applications. ThinApp packaged applications have always supported a variety of deployment options. So when it comes to using ThinApp packages with VMware App Volumes, what might be the easiest and best way to combine the technologies? And why would you want to do this?

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The New ThinApp 5.1 Feature “Project to Physical” Explained

With the ThinApp 5.1 release we introduced quite a few new features. This blog post is the first in a series where we will introduce and explain each feature more in depth.

The first feature to be examined a bit more closely is the feature we call Project to Physical or P2P. P2P is probably not the best name for it because there are billions of other features in the world using the same abbreviation. The Project to Physical feature does a ThinApp Setup Capture, but in reverse. Setup Capture captures an application—all its registry keys, files, and folders—and stores it in the ThinApp project folder. Project to Physical converts an existing ThinApp project folder into a natively installed application.

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Performance considerations using AppLink

Do the Application Linking feature (AppLink) affect performance? Unfortunately the answer is, it depends.. Using AppLink will merge two or more Data Containers together. During this merge of the virtual environments, AppLink does its conflict resolution (learn more about conflict handling in AppLink here: http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2011/03/the-power-of-applink.html) so yes, this will take some time to complete. Often this is not noticeable to the end-user though. One or two AppLinks are typically okay. Having 20 AppLink packages might be a little bit of a stretch. Then your end-users will start to notice a delay in start time. But..

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ThinApp 5.0 Quick Facts and Answers

By Tina de Benedictis, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, End-User Computing, VMware

VMware ThinApp 5.0 released two days ago, and here are some quick facts and answers to commonly asked questions.

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Quick Facts

To virtualize a 64-bit application with ThinApp, you must Continue reading →

New to ThinApp? Take the 101 ThinApp Lab!

It’s with great pleasure I can announce the VMworld 2013 Lab on ThinApp is publicly available. The Lab is composed of many modules including a ThinApp Overview, ThinApp integration with Horizon View, Mirage and Workspace. Simply jump to the module you are interested in.

This is a ThinApp 101 Lab designed for those who are new to ThinApp. It provides a quick hands-on for those getting started with ThinApp and application virtualization as well as how to integrate ThinApp packages with the Horizon Suite of products.

The ThinApp Lab is called: HOL-MBL-1311 – Applied ThinApp with the Horizon Suite

Virtualizing Microsoft Office 2010 on German Windows XP

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 project folder cleaning up best practices

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

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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