ACDC vs. SoftBar – Fight!

in Applications on App-v

Two great tools for managing App-V applications have appeared in the last few weeks - SoftBar and the App-V 4.5 Client Diagnostic and Configuration tool (ACDC). Thanks to the efforts of Greg Brownstein and Ment van der Plas, we have some excellent choices for improving the way we can manage and troubleshoot virtual applications on the client.

Both tools are aimed at anyone virtualising applications with App-V and make it a snap to get into those applications for testing and troubleshooting as well as managing the App-V client. Here’s SoftBar and ACDC in action:

I thought it might be interesting to give you an idea of their feature sets and how each tool compares to the other. So this table is the result of my completely un-scientific (and probably flawed) comparison:

SoftBar

ACDC

Cool name* []
Completely free [] []
View extended application information [] []
Add applications via OSD [] []
Launch apps from custom server []
Run external applications in bubble [] []
Add external applications to a list [] [] (ability to launch custom command at runtime as well)
Run Windows Explorer in bubble []
Edit client and cache settings []
Manage client service []
View cache stats []
Clear the cache [] []
Edit client permissions []
View and manage the log file []
Use virtual applications in scripts []

*OK, completely pointless for comparison, but ACDC only gets a point here because the name is similar to these these guys. (I’m hoping it was deliberate..)

I’ve only scratched the surface with what I think I can get out of each tool and so far my favourite is ACDC, but if you’re virtualising applications with App-V, either of these tools should be in your bag of tricks: