User`s guide
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Technology Overview
VMware® ThinApp™ is an agentless application virtualization solution that decouples applications from
their underlying operating systems to eliminate application conflict and streamline application delivery and
management. ThinApp simplifies application virtualization and enables IT administrators to quickly deploy,
eciently manage, and upgrade applications without risk. With ThinApp, an entire Windows application and its
settings can be packaged into a single executable and deployed to many dierent Windows operating systems
without imposing additional cost and complexity to the server or client. Application virtualization with ThinApp
eliminates conflicts at the application and operating system level and minimizes costly recoding and regression
testing to speed application migration to Windows 7.
ThinApp virtualizes applications by encapsulating application files and registry settings into a single ThinApp
package. IT administrators can deploy, manage, and update these ThinApp packages independently from the
underlying operating system (OS). The virtualized applications do not make any changes to the underlying
OS and behave the same across dierent desktop configurations, which provides a stable, consistent end-user
experience, and ease of management.
As a key component of VMware View™, ThinApp adds smooth application management to your virtual desktop
deployment. View is VMware’s virtual desktop oering, fully integrated with all of the advanced virtual
infrastructure features of vSphere. You can manage and assign ThinApp virtualized applications in the same
interface where you deploy and manage virtual desktops: the View Administrator console. Users access their
View desktops from a wide variety of devices: from a Windows or Mac computer, from a Linux thin client or
zero client, or from an iPad or Android tablet.
With ThinApp 4.7, administrators now have the capability of deploying ThinApp virtualized applications in
Horizon Application Manager™. Horizon Application Manager is an enterprise-level, cloud-based application
catalog and reporting mechanism that provides secure, managed user access to SaaS applications, federated
web applications, and ThinApp virtualized Windows applications, all with a single secure sign-on. VMware
Horizon provides a new management platform for entitling, deploying, and monitoring ThinApp packages.
Common Use Cases To Leverage VMware ThinApp
VMware ThinApp simplifies application delivery by encapsulating applications in portable packages that can
be deployed to many endpoint devices while isolating applications from each other and from the underlying
operating system. Common use cases for ThinApp are:
support costs.
avoid conflicts.
configuration data and settings to safely reside on the same server.
to reduce desktop storage costs and streamline updates to endpoints.
favorite applications without compromising security.
ultimate portability.