Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Application Virtualization

Very often, even if an application does work with Windows 7, it will still create conflicts with other applications running in the same environment because they are competing for system resources. Application virtualization plays a key role in mitigating those concerns.

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) transforms applications into virtualized, network-available services, resulting in dynamic delivery of software that is never installed, never conflicts, and minimizes costly application-to-application regression testing. By using this technology, users and their application environments are no longer computer specific, and the computers themselves are no longer user specific. Although App-V typically provisions applications to run independently of each other in isolated environments, App-V does permit some application interaction. You should carefully examine any dependencies that applications might have on one another and sequence applications together if they rely on interacting with each other.

This allows IT administrators to be flexible and responsive to business needs and significantly reduces the cost of computer management, including enabling application and operating-system migrations, by separating the application deployment from the core operating- system image. App-V is an integral tool in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance solution, a dynamic desktop solution available to Software Assurance customers that helps reduce application deployment costs, enable delivery of applications as services, and better manage and control enterprise desktop environments. For more information, see http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/default.aspx.