Beta Announcement: Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for SoftGrid Application Virtualization and Windows Server Virtualization The Infrastructure Planning and Design series is the next version of Windows Server System Reference Architecture. The guides in this series help clarify and streamline design processes for Microsoft infrastructure technologies; each guide addresses a unique infrastructure technology or scenario. All guides share a common structure including: · Definition of the technical

I noticed some posts on the SoftGrid Forums lately that could be addressed with some useful scripting with the .OSD files for a SoftGrid package. Scripting within .OSD files is a very powerful feature and can be used to solve or create workarounds for a vast number of situations. This is an excerpt of some text that was created to give the basics of the scripting concept. I try to go into detail on the Whats and the Hows and I also put in several script examples at the end. These examples are actual

An interesting conversation came up in the lunch room today that I thought deserved a good blog for clarification. As you may well be aware, one of the “best practices” for Sequencing an application is to have the application install itself during the monitoring phase to an 8.3 directory on the Q:\ drive. What came up during lunch is the need for deeper clarification on the reasons and even an extension on this particular best practice. During Sequencing you enter the information in the Package configuration

L'objet de ce blog est de communiquer des tips et des news autour de Microsoft SoftGrid. Néanmoins, l'ouverture de ce blog doit répondre à une question fondamentale, trop souvent écartée. Notre premier réflexe est en effet d'exposer la réponse à une question connaissance 400 (pour ceux qui connaissent les échelles de valeur technique MS). Qu'est ce que SoftGrid? Le produit SoftGrid est issu de la société Softricity rachetée par Microsoft en 2006. SoftGrid transforme les applications en services disponibles

Beaucoup des avantages SoftGrid reposent sur les apports liés à l'utilisation d'une infrastructure. Celle-ci apporte notamment: - Le streaming initial des applications. - Le streaming delta des updates ("Active Upgrade") . - Le contrôle de l'affichage des icônes sur le bureau. - Les droits de lancement des applications. - Le contrôle des licences. - Les statistiques d'utilisation des applications virtuelles. ... Microsoft planifie une nouvelle fonctionnalité SoftGrid "MSI Utility" Qu'est-ce? Le principe

There was a healthy discussion on the techcentre around the MSI utility http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2179187&SiteID=17 which Chad helped by answering a few valid questions and points around the next release of SoftGrid. With aspects such as the Lightweight Streaming Server and hints at the deep integration to SCCM R2, I would say the future is bright. Please feel free to add comments and feedbacks below. Take it away Chad................ ----------------------------------------------

Tim has released an August updated version of his Illustrated OSD tool : This small tool allows you to explore the xml syntax of the OSD file in an interactive way. Place mouse over items in the OSD file below for a description of the item. What's an OSD file? O pen S oftware D escription: a standard format created by Microsoft as part of an obscure project to database software applications using XML. This format was discovered by Softricity long before their Microsoft relationship began. Softricity

Process Monitor v1.23 is now released and available for download at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processmonitor.mspx . So why do you want it? You'll want this updated version because it adds the /HookRegistry switch. This switch, which is available only on 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, instructs Process Monitor to use system-call hooking instead of the Registry callback mechanism to monitor Registry activity. This enables Process monitor to see SoftGrid

Kevin Sullivan posted this great post about a potential work around that one of his customers in the education sector. -------------------------- And for those who cannot wait for SoftGrid 4.5 to 'Machine Target' and/or the upcoming MSI Utility described in my blog entry below simply does not meet their requirements (maybe because you don't like the fact you lose on-demand streaming and such), here is one way to get this to target systems. Coming off of a conversation on the WinHED mailing list,

Chris Lord (one of the prog managers) sent up a cool post about the local interaction policy! I am forever seeing people talk about this in the forums so this is a great post! ---------------------- Introduction Application virtualization is a key feature of the SoftGrid platform. It provides administrators with a way to prevent applications from interfering with or modifying the local environment. It can also prevent two virtual applications from conflicting with each other by confining many of