List of Applications That Can Be Virtualized

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"Can you send me a list of all the applications that can be successfully virtualized using Microsoft SoftGrid?"

"Can AppX be successfully virtualized using Microsoft SoftGrid?"

If I had a nickel for every time I got one of these two questions......

Don't get me wrong, they're both valid questions but most of the time it is impossible to provide a simple answer.  The reason for this is because in principle we design SoftGrid to work with all applications and will provide "commercially reasonable efforts to investigate potential issues when you run applications in a SoftGrid Application Virtualization environment."  To translate, this means that although it would be nice, there's no way we can test all the applications in the world to see if they work 100% when virtualized.  Almost every application does run fine but ultimately it will be up to you to try it and see.  If we do happen to run across an application that requires some sort of special tip or trick we will document that in the Knowledge Base, but otherwise we'll make every reasonable effort to help you get your application working.

Now with that in mind, what may in fact be a better question is 'What kind of application can I not virtualize with Microsoft SoftGrid?'  That's actually a little easier to answer.

While most applications can be successfully virtualized for use with SoftGrid, some applications may have certain characteristics that would prevent them from being completely virtualized using the current version of Microsoft SoftGrid.  This includes:

1. Applications that install and rely on a system-level driver, i.e. an application that installs a print driver or a USB device driver. Some applications may allow for the drivers to be installed independent of the other components of the application. As a work around for this scenario, the driver portion of this application could be installed locally on the client system, allowing the other components of the application to be virtualized.

2. Applications that install boot-time services.

3. Applications that use COM+.

4. MAPI virtualization. For information on SoftGrid and Microsoft Office, see the following article:

939796 Prescriptive guidance for sequencing 2007 Office programs in Microsoft SoftGrid https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;939796.

5. COM DLL surrogate virtualization, i.e. DLL’s that run in Dllhost.exe.

6. Applications with licensing enforcement tied to machine, e.g. the license is tied to the system’s MAC address.

Some of the applications that fall into these categories can possibly still be run in Microsoft SoftGrid as long as the component that cannot be virtualized is installed locally on the same machine as the SoftGrid client. This solution may solve the issue but is not a guarantee the applications will properly function. We recommend you test the applications thoroughly to ensure they meet the expected level of functionality.

Michelle Foley