Review: Getting Started With Microsoft Application Virtualization

If you've used Windows PCs for any length of time, you're almost guaranteed to have had problems with application incompatibilities and messy uninstalls. Over time, your computer can get increasingly junked up with fragments of programs you've uninstalled. Then, if you have multiple computers or, say, use a home computer and a work machine, there's no way to have all of your programs synced between your computers. You'll have to install and setup all of your programs on each of your computers individually. Even in 2011, we're still tied down with '90's limitations on our computers.

This problem is only extrapolated in enterprise settings. Managing applications installed on hundreds or thousands of computers can be terribly difficult. Then, keeping each employee's files and settings on their machine even if they get a new computer, and making sure everything stays cost effective, all together makes for a complex situation. That's where Microsoft's Application Virtualization, App-V, comes in. It lets you created virtualized, self-contained copies of programs that can be streamed from the server and run on client machines without being installed. Everything work the same, no matter what computer you're on. This is what I hope the future of computing looks like, and based on rumors, Windows 8 may include similar technology for standard users, but for now, this can be a reality in the enterprise.

Thoughts? @reply me on Twitter.