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ScottPart
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AppSync - best practices for using Entry Point vs. separate .DAT

My company just started using ThinApp. And the four of us responsible for virtualizing have each branched out and taken different training, conferences, read different info, and talked to different experts. When we came together to develop a single process to virtualize applications we have run into conflicting information regarding the best approach for building the Primary Data Container to best utilize the AppSync feature when pulling updates from a servers using a UNC path.

Some experts say they only use the “Use one of the Entry Points” option and others say that if we are going to use AppSync the “Use separate .DAT file” option must be used. We have Googled the topic visited the VMware forums and haven’t found a satisfactory answer to help us choose the correct method. So we figured we would post this question and see if anyone can provide us with the information we need.

What we are trying to figure out is exactly how the AppSync pointer in the program.ini file will react if we use the two options.

For example: Let’s say we virtualize a program called XYZ and the .EXE to run the program is called “xyz.1.0.exe”. We create an .MSI to install the virtual XYZ using SCCM to all of our PCs. We use the location \\Servername\XYZ\ as the AppSyncULR path for the primary data container for future updates. Later XYZ is updated to version 1.1 and after install it the .EXE is called “xyz.1.1.exe”. Rather than push this update using SCCM we want to leverage ThinApp AppSync to automatically update all the PCs to the new version. So we virtualize xyz 1.1 and copy the primary data container to the \\Servername\XYZ\ folder. In this situation what would be the best method to build our Primary Data Container to assure AppSync would update the old virtual XYZ 1.0 on all our PCs to the newer XYZ 1.1 virtual version.

  1. “Use one of the Entry Points” which forces us to name our Primary Data Container after the .EXE file “xyz.1.0.exe”. Then setup our program.ini with “AppsyncURL=file://servername/XYZ/xyz.1.0.exe “.When we copy the new Primary Data Container called “xyz.1.1.exe” to the //servername/XYZ folder, will the AppSynceURL in xyz.1.0.exe see the new “xyz.1.1.exe” data container and update xyz.1.0.exe even though we specified “AppsyncURL=file://servername/XYZ/xyz.1.0.exe “ in original xyz.1.0 virtual project?
  2. “Use separate .DAT file” which allows us to name the Primary Data Container with a generic version agnostic name like “xyz.dat”. Then setup our program.ini with “AppsyncURL=file://servername/XYZ/xyz.dat“. Knowing that we have the ability to enter the same name when we for our Primary Data Container on any future XYZ virtualized versions regardless of what the .EXE entry point is named?
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