S
Sliced Bread
Sorry for the confused questions about virtualization. I hope people here
can set me straight.
I've read and studied a good amount about Vista & virtualization, but the
articles describe what it is, not what will happen when it's gone.
The technet article quoted below implies virtualization will disappear from
Vista in the foreseeable future.
My two questions: What will happen then? What steps should I take to
compensate for it? Can I disable virtualization system-wide so I can test
those steps?
My understanding is that virtualization exists in vista now. It is like a
traffic cop that redirects attempts to write to the real registry, or to the
real system32, to a fake registry /sys32, so your app thinks all is well.
It's also my understanding that soon the cop will go away. In future
versions of Vista, I guess, or maybe even removed via a service pack.
Okay, fine. What will happen when my existing install packages try to write
to sys32 or the registry? They'll crash? Get a graceful dialog box? Surely
vista won't actually let them write to the real registry or sys32 when the
cop is gone?
And if there is a MS-suggested place where such system-wide com objects
ought to go, doesn't that sound a lot like a system32 replacement? What's
the big point of making a huge upheaval over virtualization if you end up
doing the exact same thing then?
And I guess I'm supposed to compensate by installing my DLLs and so on to
appropriate places like CommonFiles\MyCompanyName. But where am I supposed
to store files like Acrobat Reader, or Sheridan Custom Controls, which my app
requires?
And what if I need to read a (former) registry entry belonging to another
app? For example, my program needs to scan the ODBC settings in the system
and get their details. Where would I scan for that, or other similar things?
From a manifest file? Is there a repository of all manifest files ...
something like a hive perhaps?
So, how do I get the services that the registry and system32 used to provide
once virtualization is removed?
Here's the technet article I mentioned:
"Although virtualization allows the overwhelming majority of pre-Windows
Vista applications to run, it is a short-term fix and not a long-term
solution. Application developers should modify their applications to be
compliant with the Windows Vista Logo program as soon as possible, rather
than relying on file, folder, and registry virtualization."
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/00d04415-2b2f-422c-b70e-b18ff918c2811033.mspx
can set me straight.
I've read and studied a good amount about Vista & virtualization, but the
articles describe what it is, not what will happen when it's gone.
The technet article quoted below implies virtualization will disappear from
Vista in the foreseeable future.
My two questions: What will happen then? What steps should I take to
compensate for it? Can I disable virtualization system-wide so I can test
those steps?
My understanding is that virtualization exists in vista now. It is like a
traffic cop that redirects attempts to write to the real registry, or to the
real system32, to a fake registry /sys32, so your app thinks all is well.
It's also my understanding that soon the cop will go away. In future
versions of Vista, I guess, or maybe even removed via a service pack.
Okay, fine. What will happen when my existing install packages try to write
to sys32 or the registry? They'll crash? Get a graceful dialog box? Surely
vista won't actually let them write to the real registry or sys32 when the
cop is gone?
And if there is a MS-suggested place where such system-wide com objects
ought to go, doesn't that sound a lot like a system32 replacement? What's
the big point of making a huge upheaval over virtualization if you end up
doing the exact same thing then?
And I guess I'm supposed to compensate by installing my DLLs and so on to
appropriate places like CommonFiles\MyCompanyName. But where am I supposed
to store files like Acrobat Reader, or Sheridan Custom Controls, which my app
requires?
And what if I need to read a (former) registry entry belonging to another
app? For example, my program needs to scan the ODBC settings in the system
and get their details. Where would I scan for that, or other similar things?
From a manifest file? Is there a repository of all manifest files ...
something like a hive perhaps?
So, how do I get the services that the registry and system32 used to provide
once virtualization is removed?
Here's the technet article I mentioned:
"Although virtualization allows the overwhelming majority of pre-Windows
Vista applications to run, it is a short-term fix and not a long-term
solution. Application developers should modify their applications to be
compliant with the Windows Vista Logo program as soon as possible, rather
than relying on file, folder, and registry virtualization."
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/00d04415-2b2f-422c-b70e-b18ff918c2811033.mspx
