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Novell ZENworks Application Virtualization
7.2
B
UILDING
O
PEN
O
FFICE VIA SNAPSHOT PROCESS
This walkthrough describes creation of OpenOffice as a virtual application using the snapshot,
jukebox, and setup features of ZENworks Application Virtualization. Although the examples used
in this walkthrough are for OpenOffice, the processes described can be used to virtualize and
configure almost any application.
7.2.1
Snapshotting
The snapshot process consists of two phases -- the "before"
snapshot and the "after" snapshot.
The before snapshot takes an inventory of all files and settings that are installed on the computer.
The after snapshot is taken after the application being virtualized is installed. The contents of the
after snapshot are compared to the before snapshot to determine all changes that were made to the
host system during installation. The after snapshot also copies the new or modified files to a
snapshot directory specified by the user.
Since it is required to install and capture all application dependencies during this process, it is
important that snapshotting be performed on a clean Windows machine. This guarantees that all
dependencies will be included in the installation and captured by the snapshot process.
To snapshot the OpenOffice installation:
•
Capture the before snapshot by clicking
Capture Before
on the ZENworks Application
Virtualization ribbon bar. The snapshot process may take a few minutes.
•
Install OpenOffice and all of its necessary dependencies.
•
Capture the after snapshot by clicking
Capture and Diff
. ZENworks Application
Virtualization will prompt for the directory where the snapshot files are to be stored. This
directory is usually located on an external PC or network share.
7.2.2
Saving the virtual application configuration
It is important to save the virtual application snapshot in its original state in case errors are
introduced during virtual application customization and optimization. This also allows the
application to be tested and modified without the need to re-snapshot after each iteration.
To save the virtual application configuration:
Open the configuration menu and click
Save Configuration
or
Save Configuration As
.
ZENworks Application Virtualization configuration files are stored in the
XAPPL
file format. The
XAPPL
file does not contain the filesystem content. The filesystem content is stored in the
Files
directory which is created during the "after" snapshot.
Note: The
XAPPL
file uses relative paths to identify snapshot files. Therefore it is required that
the
Files
directory and the
XAPPL
file be located in the same directory.
7.2.3
Configuring the Virtual Application
Once the application snapshot has been created, the configuration can be modified or optimized
depending on the desired virtual application behavior. For example, OpenOffice is a suite of
applications; therefore program entry points need to be setup so each application can be run
individually.
