SuperJason’s Personal Blog

I don’t think I need to say anything about this.  Great for backing up your data (it’s a USB drive), and great for scaring kids and making people think you’re a little strange.

For a couple of months now, I’ve been getting more and more dependent on a very handy program called SVS.  If you’re familiar with VMware, then the concept behind SVS will be a little easier to swallow.  Basically, it allows you to turn on and off installed programs with a click.  When you turn off an application, there is no indication that the program is even on your computer.  To make it a little more clear, here is my SVS window:

As you can see, I have a long list (30+) of applications, but only the one’s that are bold actually show up on my system.  If I want to use Google Earth for example, all I have to do is right-click, and select “Activate Layer”.  Within seconds the application is on my computer, just as if I had installed it normally.

The technical way that this piece of software works, is a little understand at first.  It is basically capable of hooking into Windows, and watching all registry and files changes that occur during a program install.  Then the program can simply back those changes out when you deactivate an application.  It works great for applications the are primarily file and registry based.  Some programs like to “take over” Windows by replacing key system files, or modifying databases.  Those types of applications are probably the ones that you want to virtualize, but it’s just outside the scope of the application.  Some applications like that should be put in entire virtual machines using VMware, but that’s a topic for another time.

So now there are probably a million questions going through your head:

• How much does it cost? - This is the best part, it’s free for personal use!  You download the application, and then take 30 seconds to sign up for your free key.
• What about file associations? - SVS works great with file associations.  For example, if I deactivate Adobe Acrobat Reader, PDF’s can’t be opened.  Once I activate it, the icons change, and PDF documents are now associated with Acrobat.
• What happens to files I create in a virtualized application? - SVS allows you to define folders and file extensions that it ignores.  That means if you virtualize MS Office for example, you’ll want to make sure that .doc files are in the excluded list so that they don’t go away when you deactivate the image.
• Will this work for any application? - Well, as I said, the applications that take over your system tend to not work.  I’ve had about a 90% success rate for applications.  Obviously if your application uses an external data source like a database, you need to think about virtualizing it actually means.
• Aren’t there DLL conflicts - No, SVS automatically separates them, and avoids any conflicts.  I think they use magic pixie dust.
• What is the performance impact - It’s estimated to be a couple percent slower to run an application through SVS.  I’ve never noticed a difference in speed.

Obviously this application has tremendous benefits.  When you boot your computer, you can avoid having a lot of things installed, so your computer will run like it’s new.  If you have an application that you need to upgrade, or that you don’t use anymore, simply delete it.  It’s a perfect uninstaller.

Another killer feature is the import/export.  You can effectively export an application from one computer, and import it on another.  It makes it easy to create a single image, and then deploy it on all your computers.  I actually recommend using a virtual machine to create your images.  That has the benefit of creating images that don’t have any potential for containing personal information, or require cetain files to already exist.

So now you’re wondering how to create your own application image.  The easiest way is to tell SVS to watch the installer.  It will launch the installer, and you install the program as you normally do.  When the install is done, SVS see’s that, and stops recording.  This recording method is ideal because it only watches the changes made by the installer, or programs launched by the installer.  If that method fails, you can always switch to global capture, and then it will watch everything.  The downfall is that a lot happens on your system even while you’re not doing anything.  SVS will pick up all these changes and include them in the image.

If you want to get started, I recommend going to the SVS download page, get a trial copy, and then when you go to register it, it will give you the link to sign up for the free key.  Then I recommend getting a program called Trinket, which allows you to control SVS through a task tray icon.  I use it almost exclusively.  Then head over to SVSDownloads.com to grab some pre-built images.  Then start building your own.