Thinstall - application virtualization (sic)
Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:58 pmI recently trialled a product called Thinstall (http://www.thinstall.com/) - this is a recent aquisition of VMWare.
Basically, what it allows you to do is virtualise (or virtualize for the seppo's
) your application. To you and me, this results in a single .exe being produced, which you run instead of installing software then running it.
It works by running the Thinstall software, performing your application install, then telling Thinstall you've finished. Thinstall records all file and registry activity performed during the installation and packages this up into a single .exe file.
So, what you have is a single .exe file to run, instead of installing your software.
In my tests, I Thinstalled Jiwa 06.05.09. I ended up with a single jiwa.exe program (about 300MB in size). I copied this jiwa.exe to a clean XP machine, and ran it - jiwa launched even faster than it would after I had installed it normally - but on this machine it did not even have Jiwa installed!
It's a great way to run multiple versions of Jiwa on the same machine - you create the Thinstall packages and put them away for later use.
It's not free, but there is a trial available. I was able to Thinstall Jiwa in a few minutes, and it would be a real time-saver for those people who need to switch between application versions quickly for testing, or in evironments where install priveleges are not present.
Check it out at http://www.thinstall.com/
Basically, what it allows you to do is virtualise (or virtualize for the seppo's
) your application. To you and me, this results in a single .exe being produced, which you run instead of installing software then running it.It works by running the Thinstall software, performing your application install, then telling Thinstall you've finished. Thinstall records all file and registry activity performed during the installation and packages this up into a single .exe file.
So, what you have is a single .exe file to run, instead of installing your software.
In my tests, I Thinstalled Jiwa 06.05.09. I ended up with a single jiwa.exe program (about 300MB in size). I copied this jiwa.exe to a clean XP machine, and ran it - jiwa launched even faster than it would after I had installed it normally - but on this machine it did not even have Jiwa installed!
It's a great way to run multiple versions of Jiwa on the same machine - you create the Thinstall packages and put them away for later use.
It's not free, but there is a trial available. I was able to Thinstall Jiwa in a few minutes, and it would be a real time-saver for those people who need to switch between application versions quickly for testing, or in evironments where install priveleges are not present.
Check it out at http://www.thinstall.com/