Software Virtualization and Altiris

I've posted a bunch of posts earlier, about various virtualization related technologies like VMWare Player/Server/ESX, Virtual Server/PC, GreenBorder and SoftGrid, but I have somehow managed to neglect mentioning Altiris Software Virtualization Solution. This way of doing Software Virtualization differs from Server Virtualization which both VMWare and Virtual Server offer. Server virtualization demands that you install an OS inside the virtualized environment, where the actual hardware is virtualized and presented to the OS. In a Software Virtualization environment, the base OS is the same (in this case Windows) but virtualized layer is instead registry settings and configuration settings. This lets you run multiple versions of the same application on the same os, or even conflicting applications running besides each other. Altiris Software Virtualization Solution provides a way to run applications inside so called "Virtual Software Packages", where they remain "boxed in" and unable to touch the underlying OS. Installing Altiris SVS is a straight forward installation process, which does require a reboot at the end. After installation, you get a new start menu entry Altiris->Software Virtualization->Software Virtualization Admin as well as a desktop icon. Start it up, and it presents a small empty admin tool. This tool is the heart of creating new virtual layers for your applications to run in. Select "Create New Layer" from the File menu and you get a choice of three different settings. I chose the "Install Application" setting, and gave it a name. The next screen lets you select an installation file, from your harddrive, which it then proceeds to run inside the newly created virtual layer. The this is done is that it records all the steps the installation software for your application does like; capturing registry entries, application files, and writes it in it's own format in the systems \fslrdr folder. The \fslrdr folder is later used when the application is run inside it's virtual layer, and all normal read/write requests to the registry will get redirected there instead. In fact, if you look at the windows registry after installing an application inside a virtual layer, you will not find a single trace of it there. In my testing I decided to try and install WinAmp 5.24, and after it ran through the standard WinAmp installed (called from the SVS admin tool), it was installed. The virtualized application appears in the Add or Remove programs applet listing in Windows, but the normal "Remove" button isn't displayed. If you want to remove it, you have to do it via the Altiris SVS admin tool. As long as the virtual layer is activated, the WinAmp icons are displayed on the start menu as usual, but if I deactivate the layer the icon goes missing. You can also set layers to autostart if you want, and you can even reset a specific layer if the application that runs inside it crashes for some reason. This method completely removed the conflicts that you may encounter when running multiple versions of the same software on the same client machine, or even cross application conflicts (aka DLL Hell and Registry Rot) WinAmp ran perfectly inside the virtualized layer, and I really didn't notice any slowdown as a result of running it inside Altiris SVS. The creation process is also very quick, and I had my first virtualized application running in just a few minutes. When you have created a layer, you can archive it into a Virtual Software Archive (.vsa) and distribute it to other computers running SVS. You can download sample files from Juice and even from SVSDownloads. Altiris SVS pretty much operates in the same way (or at least the end results are somewhat similar) that Softricity Desktop and Application Isolation in Citrix works, and best of all, it's free for personal use. Also, have a look at World's Greatest SVS Demo for a great explanation of what SVS is. Screenshots as usual, in the Gallery.

Posted by Christian Mohn aka h0bbel