The Future of Virtualization


A Possible Virtualization Problem

While virtualization looks to be a pretty good online fix for legacy applications, it may introduce altogether new problems of its own. Suppose, for example, that you used a pre-Vista application we'll call "Oldapp." Oldapp is so old or so badly written that it stores user settings in a text file called oldapp.ini rather than the Registry, and it stores that file in C:\Program Files\OldSoft\oldapp.ini. Thus, every user who's running Oldapp has an oldapp.ini file in the same place in their Program Files directory.

Of course, under Vista virtualization, that'd change. Instead of writing to C:\Program Files\OldSoft, Oldapp's file would end up in C:\Users\ username \AppData\Local\ VirtualStore\Program Files\OldSoft. How could this be a problem? Well, Oldapp probably doesn't allow for any kind of centralized administration tool like group policies, so companies using Oldapp might be doing central control by regularly distributing an oldapp.ini file that contains company standard settings to every desktop via a login script, SMS, or something of that variety. Now, when everyone ran Oldapp on XP, then they all had their oldapp.ini files in the same place. Now, however, someone trying to centrally control Oldapp by distributing standard oldapp.ini files would have a somewhat more complex task ahead of her, as she'd have to write distribution code that would be smart enough to

  • Detect the operating system the user is running, as all pre-Vista OSes will have oldapp.ini in Program Files;

  • Detect the user's username, so as to be able to construct the directory path to the VirtualStore; and

  • End up looking in both places for oldapp.ini anyway, as Vista users of Oldapp will still have oldapp.ini in their Program Files folder if they run as Administrator, or have disabled virtualization or UAC in general.

Now, understand, none of this is insurmountable, but it may cause some headaches.




Administering Windows Vista Security. The Big Surprises
Administering Windows Vista Security: The Big Surprises
ISBN: 0470108320
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 101

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