Course Overview Windows Installer (MSI) Definitions Benefits of Windows installer

Application packaging Tools Wise Package Studio OR InstallShield Adminstudio

Why learn Application Packaging? Making mass deployments of applications easier. Automated Installations without User interaction. To have robust desktop environment. Simplifies application setup and maintenance. Total Cost of Ownership for Organizations. Problems with Legacy Installers Poor admin experience Destabilizing to the OS and other apps Poor development experience

Benefits of Application Packaging Consistency Customizing application installation Advertisement Self Healing of Applications Rollback Package Types Manually Authored MSI Repackaged MSI Tailored Vendor Supplied MSI Scripted Installation

What is Application Virtualization? Application virtualization is describes software technologies that improve Portability , manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in the traditional sense, although it is still executed as if it were. The application is fooled at runtime into believing that it is directly interfacing with the original operating system and all the resources managed by it, when in reality it is not. Benefits of application virtualization Allows applications to run in environments that do not suit the native application. May protect the operating system and other applications from poorly written or buggy code and in some cases provide memory protection. Uses fewer resources than a separate virtual machine. Run applications that are not written correctly, for example applications that try to store user data in a read-only system-owned location. Run incompatible applications side-by-side, at the same time and with minimal regression testing against one another. Reduce system integration and administration costs by maintaining a common software baseline across multiple computers in an organization. Implement the security principle of least privilege by removing the requirement for end-users to have Administrator privileges in order to run poorly written applications. Simplified operating system migrations. Accelerated application deployment, through on-demand application streaming. Improved security, by isolating applications from the operating system.

 Enterprises can easily track license usage. Application usage history can then be used to save on license costs. Fast application provisioning to the desktop based upon user's roaming profile. Allows applications to be copied to portable media and then imported to client computers without need of installing them. Limitations of application virtualization Not all software can be virtualized. Some examples include applications that require a device driver and 16-bit applications that need to run in shared memory space. Some types of software such as anti-virus packages and applications that require heavy OS integration are difficult to virtualize. Only file and registry-level compatibility issues between legacy applications and newer operating systems can be addressed by application virtualization. The Virtual Application Environment: With application virtualization, each application brings down its own set of configurations ondemand, and executes in a way so that only it sees its own settings. Application Virtualization Tools Microsoft App-V VMWare ThinApp Citrix XenApp