Application Virtualisation – VMware ThinApp

I have had a good experience with VMware.

First, I found their Workstation (virtual machine software) to be top notch – the best in its class. Of course, many will support VirtualBox, but despite being open source in a category where being open source should be an advantage, it does not match up. You pay for VMware, but you get your money’s worth.

But this article is not about VMware. This is about another VMware tool I just tried – ThinApp. It comes with a fancy claim – being able to make any software portable, and thus be able to do it without conflicts. If you can install ThinApp somewhere, your ThinApp’ed software will work simply on copying and pasting, settings intact.

That piqued me. Think of the advantages: able to take your Office suite home with you, save your browser on your USB and take it along, and it runs. And as for testing, the ‘no conflicts’ clause means that technically, you should be able to test (or run) two or three different antivirus software on your system. Wacky.

So I downloaded it.

And it’s not free. Nevertheless, I went on ahead with a trial. The install is simplicity itself. Next, next, next…

The fun begins when it asks for the starting setup. It asks to be able to scan a Clean PC. Where would I get a clean PC from, anyway? It didn’t make much sense to me, and even though there a little explanation given there, it just serves to confuse more.

And then comes the installation part. It is rather unusual. I was expecting that I would have to open my application installers in ThinApp. All it asks is to minimize the screen, install, and maximize the Window again.

By now, I was beginning to get a good idea of how it works. It scans the registry hives, settings etc. and then rescans them after the installation and configuration of the software. It captures the changed files, as well as the changes in the registry and all, and runs them together in some way. Of course, this also implies that a software that was packaged on, say, Windows XP, will probably not run on Windows Vista.

After installing a software package (I chose to install Safari 4 beta, for experiment’s sake), I let it do another scan. Given that I was into the scheme of things now, this was no real surprise. I might as well specify that the scans are slow, and that I did not have a Clean PC to begin with.

It then generates a comparison, and asks you to set a few parameters that are rather straightforward. Simple, and convenient. By now, I had gotten used to the ugly, and unpolished interface of the software, and working.

It took an half an hour from start to end. And this excludes the time taken for the actual install. And there’s more. It actually used ALL the files that had changed between the two scans. While I certainly understand the clean PC requirement, this isn’t exactly making me very happy – must I install a clean system just for making ThinApps? For me, it would not be too hard – I would just install it a virtual machine, but that would be beyond most people.

And unorthodox conclusion:

It’s a real pain to get up and running. But it works really well!

Windows 7 review (in VMware, beta)

Introduction

As my readers will know, I have recently been testing out lots of OSes in VMware. The latest to hit my test line was the beta of Windows 7. In this very brief review, I intend to outline the major achievements of Windows 7 so far.

Despite everything, the hardware requirements for running a normal copy of Windows 7 have not gone down: still the same 1GB RAM, and a strong graphics card.

As I cannot dispense my currently installed OSes (Vista, Fedora, openSUSE), I decided to install in a virtual environment – VMware.

Installation

The install experience was practically identical to Vista, and the similarity of Windows 7 to Vista at a core level is so strong, that VMware automatically detected it as Vista and proceeded on its ‘Easy Install’. I was expecting it to run into errors – after all, there must be some differences. Turns out there were none, and an hour later, I was sitting on the desktop.

Impression

The lack of an Aero interface was not surprising (VMware does not support it). But was apparent was a high level of polish in the Basic theme. I noticed that I had installed Windows 7 ‘Ultimate’, which gives an idea of flavouring similar to Vista too.

There is no major interface overhaul. There are slight changes here and there, just a few movements here and there. Nothing as drastic as the XP to Vista transition – Vista users will not even have to delve around to find what they need.

Performance

On my Virtual Machine, it ran just slightly faster than Vista but much slower than XP. I was expecting a greater difference, particularly after the hearsay about Windows 7 being developed for netbooks and all.

Software that works in Vista is very likely to work in W7, though not some of the core running software that runs at a very low level such as antivirus programs.

Changes

There are no really great new changes. Most are just deft touches of concepts carried forward from Vista, albeit the fact that they make it a better experience.

The Sidebar is gone, and Gadgets can now be placed anywhere. There is almost no difference between an item on the task bar that is running and minimized, or a shortcut to a closed application. This is meant to convey a uniformity of look and selection. Great if the closed application launches fast, otherwise you’ll be kept in dark.

Right clicking the taskbar items brings up Jump Lists – menus related to the Application itself: like recent history for the Internet Explorer.

The UAC problems of Vista are over – there is very little to see of it. Of course, there is the problem of reduced security (I was a fan of the overzealous UAC), but most people will cheer at it.

The Windows Explorer has undergone a few changes – the side pane is better to look at, and more smooth in its flow.

Conclusion

But I maintain that there is no major change in Windows 7. All the media hype is just hype – at its base, Windows works like Vista. The media demonized Windows Vista, and the same media is now glorifying the same features in Windows Vista.

Media perspectives aside, I still like Windows 7. But then again, I like Vista too.

Testing Linux under VMware

Introduction

I love testing out new Linux distributions. But I hate installing a Linux distribution, only to find that the one I had before was far better. I also spend most of my time is spent under Windows Vista, because no Linux can satisfy the two major demands of mine: Adobe CS and Microsoft Office 2007.

Yet, when I need to reboot into Linux for network related activity or just feeling the speed and stability of Linux, I have to shut down all my Windows programs, including the many servers I run on my university network (just for fun, of course).

And thus, I turned to VMware, so I could at least test out my distros before burning them in and installing them to my hard disk partitions.

Of course, I had know about VMware, but I had not been bothered enough to go through the hassle of getting a copy, and moreover, I could hardly spare another 10-15 GBs of hard disk space on my already full hard disk. But I just recently bought myself a 500GB external hard disk, and there I was, ready to spare VMware some space.

Using it

VMware has it’s site here. Mind that you obtain the Workstation, not just the free Player.

Actually, VMware is rather easier to use than I ever expected. It is simply a case of install, click and run. There’s a fine little wizard to guide you through the process of creating a virtual machine, and if it detects the version of Linux you have from the ISO image, even easier.

But even under ‘Advanced’ mode, things are hardly any challenge: if you know how to install Linux in dual boot configuration, this virtual machine setup will not break your sweat. All you have to do is to specify the virtual machine’s working directory, and the settings you want for your virtual machine, as well as a few other minor parameters. Elementary.

One necessary trick, though is to know the version of Linux that you run. In most cases, it will not correctly detect the latest Linux distros, so during the machine setup, it gives you a long menu of Linux types to manually choose from. In most cases, your field will lie under ‘Other 2.6.x kernel’

When you run the virtual machine, you get a full computer in a computer, and you use exactly as you would a physical computer. And that, is what makes things so much fun.

Furthermore, the virtual machines so created are portable – and they can be be run on any operating system where the free VMware Player is installed. Most communication between the guest OS and other OSes (whether outside the host OS, or as other virtual OSes or the host itself) is done via a virtual network. Like I said earlier, it is not much to grapple with – at least for someone ready enough to try virtualisation.

There are other fine features too, my favourite being ‘Unity’, that kind of melds the guest operating system into the host, and allowing copy & paste operations from the host to the guest.

But these advanced features need a little software installed inside the guest OS, called VMware tools. Once again, this is easier done than said – all it takes is clicking ‘Install VMware tools’ in the Workstation menu. For Linux, this loads up a virtual CD drive containing an archived Perl script that you run to install.

Performance & the nags

Of course, virtualisation has its downsides. Sometimes, things that work on your virtual machines may not work on the direct native installation, and vice versa.

But most importantly of all, there is a massive performance hit. Not only to the guest operating system, but the host operating system too. That is because unless you have a really powerful computer will loads of RAM (in fact, 2GB is my recommended minimum), and a lot of processing power to boot (1.8 GHz dual core processor, at least), you will really be stretching your computer to its limit. And that is not very unexpected, after all, you are running more than one complete OS on a single system.

Price is a bit of a problem too: it costs a good $190 to buy a single license, if you are planning to keep it for anything more than 30 days.

Final words

If computing power is not short on demand (as for me), and you have disk space to spare, and most importantly, it serves your purpose to be able to run one or more OSes simultaneously from inside another OS, then this is worth your time (and money). For distro hoppers, this is a useful item to have on your system.

P.S. The first major Linux distribution that I am testing is Mint 6. My review should be ready once I have given this upcoming distro my ‘harsh’ treatment.