The Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7 Layer Definition File (LDF) provides a mechanism for customers of Symantec Workspace Virtualization to create the Virtual Application Layer and package without the need to capture the installation.

Prerequisites

- Symantec Workspace Virtualization v6.1 SP7 or greater
- Symantec Workspace Virtualization Layer Definition Tool. Download.

Installation

The steps for creating the IE9 for Windows 7 are very straight-forward. 

1. Extract the download that accompanies this article to your desktop (ie9-win7-x.x.x.x.zip - where -x.x.x.x is the LDF version).
2. IE9 must be installed in the base.
3. Windows 7 SP1 must be installed.
4. Install  these packages:
   • For x86 System:
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2847204-x86.msu
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2829530-x86.msu
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2618444-x86.msu
   • For x64 System:
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2847204-x64.msu
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2829530-x64.msu
     • IE9-Windows6.1-KB2618444-x64.msu
5. Download the updates for your computer from the Microsoft Update website now:
   
   http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/
6. Right-Click the .EXE file (ie9-win7-x.x.x.x.EXE) and run as administrator. This will invoke swvldf.exe (Layer Definition Tool) with the proper parameters to create the IE9 on Windows 7 virtual application layer.

• Base IE8: Delete history doesn't work.
• Virtualized IE9 shares native IE history
• It may be an issue in the driver that make rundll32.exe loads the incorrect version of some system dlls (urlmon.dll and wininet.dll) see attached ProcMon log.
• Base IE8: When executing "File->Work Offline" this error will appear: "There was a problem starting C:\\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer 9\WININET.dll" "The specified procedure could not be found"
• Base IE8 & IE9: Sometimes View history crash if the option 'View By Ordered Visited Today' is selected. This issue is related to Isolation Rules issue.
• Base IE8 & IE9: When executing "File->Save as...", after changing the name of the file, when we select "Save" this error will appear: "This Webpage could not be saved"

Important: The creation of the IE9 Layer on Windows 7 must be run on Windows 7 with IE9 installed to the base (i.e. installed natively and not virtualized). The LDF references local files installed on the system in order to create the virtualized IE9 layer.

Supported Side-By-Side Configurations

Internet Explorer 9 Virtualized will function "Side-By-Side" with any one of the following versions of IE installed to the base (i.e. installed natively and not virtualized).

Support

Information about the support status of the IE9 layer created by this tool can be found here .
Please note that the IE9 layer created by this tool is only supported if the LDF and the Virtual Application Layer are not altered in any way.

Documentation

Documentation on the SWV Layer Definition Tool can be found here .

How it works

The swvldf.exe tool is passed an Layer Definition File (LDF) that contains XML tags that define all the data required to create a Virtual Application Layer. The files required for the Virtual Application Layer are downloaded from public sites on the internet and may require considerable time to complete depending on the file requirements. It is also possible alter the LDF to point to existing files that you already have available on your system. Please see the documentation to learn how to change the <file-source> tags to point to local file repositories. By default the <file-source> tags that download files using http do not use a proxy server. In order to use a proxy server please see the documentation for the "conn-str" attribute of the <file-source> tag.

Change Log