Application objects of type ‘ThinApp’ can be associated with a Vmware ThinApp package (EXE-file). Not all EXE-files are ThinApp packages (e.g. Microsoft Windows Notepad.exe is not a ThinApp package).
Vmware ThinApp is an application virtualization method that is completely stand-alone.
It does not need a separate client or agent to be installed and it has no server components.
Simplified, a ThinApp executable consists of three things:
- Virtual machine
- Virtual File System
- Virtual Registry
After launching a ThinApp executable the built-in ThinApp virtual machine is started and creates the isolated virtual environment (similar to App-V), next it will start an application from its internal virtual file system. Access to the virtual file system and virtual registry is done in a way that resembles the block wise streaming operations in App-V.
After attaching the ThinApp package, ThinApp specific features are available.
Package File.
Specifies the associated ThinApp package.
Sometimes a ThinApp application is part of a suite of applications. In this case there are several ThinApp files working together. Selecting one of these files will trigger Scense to automatically find all other files belonging to this group of ThinApp files.
Clicking the down arrow of the Package File combo-box will show a dropdown list of all files in the suite.
Information.
Information read directly from the ThinApp package.
Overrule Extended Installation Defaults.
Since ThinApp applications require no installation they are extremely portable and can be run from any accessible location. Scense supports this feature through the Extended Installation settings.
In the site parameters the administrator can determine the global defaults for the Extended Installation settings using these parameters:
| Parameter Name | Description |
| DefaultInstallTypeDesktop | Default install type for desktops (0=local, 1=shared) |
| DefaultInstallTypeLaptop | Default install type for laptops (0=local, 1=shared) |
| DefaultInstallTypeServer | Default install type for servers (0=local, 1=shared) |
| DefaultInstallTypeTerminalServer | Default install type for terminal servers (0=local, 1=shared) |
Local:
The ThinApp application is copied to the local hard drive of the computer in the %ProgramFiles% folder. The application will be started from this location.
Shared:
The ThinApp application will be launched directly from the central %InstallScripts% location on a server.
These defaults can be overruled on a per-application basis.