Softgrid Team blog

Hi , I am back from vaccation and its time to continue writing articles and posts here. If you havent visited and put the Softgrid Team Blog on rss its time to do that now, its full of interesting articles and knowledge.

Today they published a article about Troubleshooting SoftGrid with Process Monitor

 So please visit their blog here.

Take Your Apps Virtual with Microsoft SoftGrid

Kedar Shah and Ahmer Sabri has written a really good article about Softgrid. Softgrid is a product from microsoft to virtualize applications. A step further from server virtualizations.

My personal opinion is that this is a really good product when used rigth, Softgrid isnt right in all situations but its very good om many situations, its possible to replace many MSI packaged applications with this and in the long run you will save money in your packaing and testing process. The integration to System Management Server isnt the best at the moment and there are some design considerations.

You can read the full article here http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/08/SoftGrid

Microsoft SoftGrid 4.1 Service Pack 1

Service Pack 1 for Softgrid has been released. Blelow you will find some information from the KB further reading please go to this KB article KB938497.

New Capabilities
Microsoft SoftGrid 4.1 SP1 improves support for sequencing SxS applications that have public assemblies, such as the 2007 Microsoft Office release

Upgrade or Uninstall and Reinstall?
You can upgrade a client to SoftGrid 4.1 SP1 from a client version 3.2, version 4.0, or version 4.1. The upgrade process preserves all system configuration settings and user-profile settings. When you upgrade from version 3.2, the client software-application cache is flushed. After the upgrade, you must reload applications.
We recommend that you upgrade clients to the latest version. However, you can also uninstall earlier versions before you install client version 4.x. To uninstall earlier versions, use the Add or Remove Programs utility. When you uninstall, the local SoftGrid settings are removed for the user who performs the uninstall, and the cache is flushed.
If you are using an earlier version of the SoftGrid Sequencer, you cannot upgrade directly to version 4.1 SP1. You must restore the appropriate backup image base operating system on the computer that is running SoftGrid Sequencer before you install version 4.1 SP1. The backup image should contain end-user software that will be on every client computer.
You can upgrade all SoftGrid server components from version 3.1, version 3.2, version 4.0, or version 4.1. Upgrades from earlier releases of the Microsoft SoftGrid components are not supported. If you have older Microsoft SoftGrid components, uninstall them by using the Add or Remove Programs utility before you install version 4.1 SP1 components.
The server upgrade automatically validates existing applications and identifies application configuration problems.

Note: Applications that you sequence with the SoftGrid Sequencer version 4.x may not stream correctly to SoftGrid clients that are running version 3.x. You can upgrade target clients to version 4.x or continue to stream version 3.x sequenced applications to the older clients. Testing with client versions 4.x and SoftGrid Sequencer version 4.x is recommended.

Download locations
SoftGrid Sequencer (4.1.1.303)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/6/c/06cf3aac-347e-4e42-9355-fcfcec3c7f43/SoftGrid_sequencer_setup_4.1.1.303.exe
SoftGrid Server (4.1.1.302)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/c/afc8cf1f-d271-426e-923a-b04a34674c3c/SoftGrid_server_setup_4.1.1.302.exe
SoftGrid for Terminal Services (4.1.1.302)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/0/1/f01b4fcd-8778-4e49-b56c-7ae6ab72f6ff/SoftGrid_ts_setup_4.1.1.302.exe
SoftGrid for Windows Desktops (4.1.1.302)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/8/5b87fbe8-5973-4a57-9b04-44e2f3d80be4/SoftGrid_wd_setup_4.1.1.302.exe

Virtualized applications

Have you heard of Softgrid ? If you havent I strongly recommend you to take a look at Softgrid. Sofgrid is a software that virtulizes applications, so that they no longer are installed on the client operating system. Today many organisations spend several hours customizing, packaging and testing their MSI packages before deploying them to their enterprise.

A virtual applications runs with with full priviliges in its “virtual bouble” directly streamed from the application server or via Terminal Services without affect to the local operating system. This saves alot of effort in testing and risks for application incompabillity.

A typical softgrid environment could look like this. I will post further articles about the different components within softgrid.

More resources on softgrid is upcoming here and untill then you will find more information on www.microsoft.com/softgrid

If you would like to discuss Softgrid or System management you are more than welcome to contact me.