If you’re deploying Office 2007 and haven’t yet standardised on the new file formats, you’re probably already aware of how to set the default file formats via Group Policy, or using the Office Customization Tool to set the defaults before installing Office.

No official word from the SoftGrid/Application Virtualisation blog yet, but Microsoft have released the MSI Utility for Microsoft Application Virtualization for converting your sequenced application to MSI installs.

Here’s a great example of the improvements to interaction with User Account Control in Windows Vista Service Pack -creating folders in system locations (e.g. the Start Menu, Program Files etc.). This is probably the most ‘in your face’ UAC interaction, and beyond this I’ve personally found UAC to be quite usable.

The Short NAP is a (semi-regular) quick list of Microsoft Network Access Protection and Server/Domain Isolation related links from around the web. Here are the links for Monday the 17th of December 2007:

Here’s a really simple method for using running the latest version of the Oracle JInitiator even though your application may require a specific version. DISCLAIMER: This is most likely unsupported by Oracle but it thus far it’s worked for me. If you’re worried about your applications breaking don’t implement this hack.

Adobe InDesign should be the last of the Adobe CS3 applications that I’ll have to sequence and like Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat, I had the same issues with sequencing and running the application on the client. So I don’t have to repeat myself, check out those posts first and here are the basics for sequencing InDesign CS3.

As with my earlier posts on sequencing Adobe Acrobat 8 and Adobe Photoshop CS3, I’ve struck the same manifest issues with Illustrator CS3. Here’s a quick breakdown on what I needed to do to get this application working:

Deploying Adobe applications with SoftGrid/Microsoft Application Virtualisation certainly takes a lot of patience, because like Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop took quite a long time to sequence and troubleshoot. Sequencing the application alone will take around 6 hours, but your mileage may vary.

After working on sequencing Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional for the better part of four days, I’ve come to the conclusion that this application is just not going to work well from within SoftGrid. Here’s my reasoning:

I’m not completely convinced that Adobe Acrobat (not Reader) is the best candidate for deploying via application virtualisation techniques, but if you’re looking to do it you’re in for a bit of a ride.