Should I reboot, when prompted, while virtualizing an app?

Q:
Dave asked, "When I'm doing an installation into an app layer, at the end of the install sequence (.msi, .exe or whatever) I'm prompted to reboot as part of the installation process. What is the best practice on how to handle the reboot?"

A:
Good question Dave. That's one we hear a lot. And the answer is usually simple.

As a rule, you should cancel any request for reboot during the capture process. Let the capture end. The layer will come up active, but we don't execute startup events then. Deactivate it and then re-activate it and SVS will run the startup events (service spin-up/register, run and runonce commands, delete after reboot entries, etc.). This is usually all that's required.

It gets more complex when the setup is designed to resume after reboot. When that's the case, before re-activating the layer you need to delete the runonce key that starts the setup back up; otherwise when you re-activate the layer, the setup will resume but additional writes go into the writeable sublayer.

Copy the syntax of the runonce key, delete it, then re-enter capture mode (the File > Update Existing Layer option) and enter the command from the runonce key into the Single Program capture dialog. That way, the rest of the setup process will go into the read-only sublayer, as needed.

We used this process in the lab while installing Novell GroupWise 6.x. After the process installs Windows Messaging System, it prompts you for a reboot after which it resumes the setup of the GroupWise client itself.

We did run into a caveat with the GroupWise install: GroupWise doesn't actually use a runonce key -- it uses a Startup folder item to resume the setup. That can be the biggest challenge with setups that resume after reboot: finding where the resume is triggered from and getting the correct command line syntax to enter into the Single Program Capture dialog when you re-enter capture mode. Vendors haven't made this trigger location obvious because using SVS is probably the first time customers have had a need to know about it.

Brian Mann has also this information that might help: Virtualizing Applications that Require a Reboot During Install