Application link is a feature VMware added to the Thinstall product they acquired a while ago. As the feature name implies, it allows you to link ThinApp'ed applications. You could for example link a browser to a Flash plugin or a Java plugin. In this post I will show you the basics of application link. I will link Opera 9.5 to a Flash plugin. The steps to get this to work are as follows:

1. Create separate projects for Opera 9.5 and the Flash plugin.
2. Configure the package.ini of Opera 9.5 with the application link.
3. Deliver the packages to end-users taking into account the placement of the plugins.

This post does not discuss the first step. Check the two previous blog posts to see how to do that. When you create the project for the Flash plugin, download a standalone installer for Flash and use it during Setup Capture. I ended up with the following projects:

The second step, configuring the application link, is easy. In the package.ini of Opera 9.51 you will find the following line:

Just remove the ; in front of the highlighted line and build the project using build.bat. With this default configuration (plugins\*.exe) you need to put a plugins folder in the folder that contains Opera.exe:

The Flash project resulted in a file called NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe and that file is put in the plugins folder. Because application link is configured with *.exe, the plugin will be picked up at runtime. It does not matter where the exe's are located. They can be put on the local workstation, a USB drive or a network share.

In the previous post I showed you how to install ThinApp and run a Setup Capture. Unless you are completely new to the technology, those things are rather straightforward. Now we will take a look at some other aspects of the package building process.

Setup Capture generates a project that you can customize before the build process. The default project location is in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\. As an example, I chose to virtualize Opera 9.5 and that resulted in this project folder: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\Opera 9.51.

When you open the project folder you will get something like in the screenshot below.

One of the most important files is the package.ini file because it contains parameters that drive the build process. The VMware site has full details about the settings in package.ini here.

Some interesting parameters can be found in the general purpose parameters section:

• SandboxName: the sandbox is the location where the user's application settings are stored. By default that is %appdata%\Thinstall\SANDBOXNAME. %appdata% is a directory in the user's profile that can be redirected to a network location using Group Policies. Note that VMware did not change Thinstall to ThinApp here.
• PermittedGroups: to configure who is allowed to run the application
• RemoveSandboxonExit: to clear the sandbox when the user quits the application, useful when you always want the user to start from the default settings in the package.
• SandboxNetworkDrives: to allow or disallow access to network drives from the package. Access is allowed by default.
• SandboxRemovableDisk: similar to the network drives setting but for removable disks.

Near the end of package.ini you will find the entry points to the application. In my case there is a section called [Opera.exe]. In some cases you will find other entry points that you don't need. In my case I had entry points called [cmd.exe], [regedit.exe] and [iexplore.exe]. Although you can disable these entry points during Setup Capture I usually remove them from package.ini afterwards as well.

Now that you know about package.ini, let's build the project. In the project folder there is a batch file called build.bat. Just run that file to start the build. It's that simple! You will get a new folder called bin. In my case there are two files:

You can just take the opera.exe application and run it on another computer. One of the strengths of ThinApp is the fact that it is agentless. It is agentless because the virtualization engine is actually included in each executable that is generated.

When you run a ThinApp'ed application you get the following in the right bottom corner of the screen:

The application then starts as if it was installed locally. In virtual Opera, I added my blog to the list of bookmarks. Since that is a user preference, it is saved in the sandbox at C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Thinstall\Opera 9.51. You should note that by default, if you install add-ons like Flash, they are also installed to the sandbox. When you delete the sandbox directory and start the application again you start with default settings in the package. Talk about a simple way to reset the user environment on a per application basis.

The features described above are essentially the same as in Thinstall 3.0. VMware added some new features like Application Sync and Application Link but that is for another post.

I just downloaded ThinApp 4.0 from the VMware website. The screens below show the installation screens and setup capture screens to have some idea about what the product looks like.

The installer is very small (around 7MB). I created a Windows XP virtual machine in VMware Workstation, installed ThinApp 4.0 and created a snapshot. The snapshot allows me to revert to it after creating a package in order to start with a clean machine whenever I create a package. Note that it is recommended to start the ThinApp setup capture process from a network share instead of installing it on your capture workstation.

First, let's start the installation.

You have to enter a serial number and license display name. You can get a trial key at www.vmware.com for 60 days. The trial includes VMware Workstation 6 as well if you don't have it yet.

After installation you get the following shortcuts in the Start Menu:

With ThinApp Setup Capture you capture the installation of a piece of software. When launched, you get the following screens:

Of course, you need to run setup capture on a clean computer. The next dialog tells you that but also allows you to set advanced settings.

The advanced settings:

You normally don't need to change anything in the Advanced settings. Continuing with the setup wizard, the prescan starts. Scanning is very fast.

When the prescan finishes you get the dialog below. Now it is time to start an installation. I installed Opera 9 (not shown).

After installation, you click Next in the dialog above. ThinApp can now start the postscan in order to determine the differences.

Now you can select the entry points. Multiple entry points are possible, for example when you virtualize Office with Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

You can configure the application so that only specific users can run it. AD groups are used for this purpose. The sandbox location is a location where ThinApp can store the user's settings. If the user sets favorites in Opera for example, they are stored in the sandbox.

The next dialog asks for the isolation mode. The explanations in the dialog speak for themselves.

You can accept the default location for the project. The MSI generation checkbox is not checked by default. It generates a standard MSI that can be deployed to user's desktops with tools such as Altiris or SCCM 2007.

The project is then created.

In the final screen you can browse the project and make changes or build the project. I will not do that and click Finish to end the capture.

Note that when you just click Finish, your virtualized application is not created. You need to actually build the project for that. A next post will show you how the build process works without using the Build Now button in the dialog above.