How to install service packs onto Thin Apps and other questions

Question

I have a VM that I use to do all my ThinApps, Once I have done my application and its built I copy just the bin folder to a server which has a share, I then create a shortcut to the program exe on users desktops. This all seems to work ok. Firstly is this correct?

If so, how then do I apply a service pack to that application after the ThinApp VM has been reverted to a base image, I have corel draw which i have a service pack for but it wont intall it as its saying it cant find the package installed on the computer. I have Thinreg batch file so have included corel into that and the program appears in the program list. I have the sandbox redirected to the server share mentioned earlier into seperate user folders when the user logs in.

Obvisouly once i have done a App I revert to a previous snapshop so my thinapp vm is back to base image, so the corel install is lost.

Sorry if im missing something very simple. Is its a case if you have an exe/msp you have to reinstall the whole app again and start over,

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

Yes in broad strokes that first question is correct.

I think the simple answer to the second question would be to retain the VM guest snapshot branch that was used to build the ThinApp package. Then it could simply be used to do an in-place upgrade with the service pack (to a new snapshot). Probably not what you want to hear.

I would redo the installation on a new fresh VM snapshot subtree and apply the service pack to that. You should retain the batch build files that you have now, most likely it is still usable and has all of your customizations. Most of what you customized is probably in the ini file anyway.

When you place the new package on the share, you may already be aware that you can name it myApp.1 (if the package name is myApp.exe), and when users launch myApp.exe and it sees the .1 file, it will use that instead. When everyone is out of the .exe file, you can rename the .1 file to .exe. You can also keep both files around for a while if you need to backout.

When you create snapshots from a template, you can save a lot of disk space. This enables you to create a fairly comprehensive build environment with multiple snapshots and different branches using minimal storage.