Global Excludes vs. Layer Excludes, and more
Since I am one of the SWV home users, I cannot contribute to deployment pros or cons of concepts. But I would appreciate any comments on my practices.
This is how I use SWV
- Win7 is on C:, all my data not on C: (even 'documents'-folders etc. are redirected where supported, which is an easy one-time job after installing windows)
- The fslrdr redirection points to a different drive than C:
- all drive letters except C: are in the Global Excludes
- [TEMP], [TMP], [HISTORY], [CACHE] ... are in the Global Excludes
- New virtualized Apps are generated via Single Program Capture, which is always an Explorer-like app (Q-Dir, in my case, might also be FreeCommander portable), and I do all additional actions during the capture, i.e. adding/removing of shortcuts.
These are the main goals
- to have C: as slim and clean as possible, so C: partition backups are small and I can restore my system in short time - a restore is better than a re-installation, because system- and user-IDs change with every new OS installation
- to be able to restore dozens of application layers in short time, should I need to re-install my OS.
- to get slim layers that do not include temporary data like recycle bin, browser cache/history, duplicate versions of my data and so on
- to have the virtualized apps work with non-virtualized data, and store data in the base, with little layer creation effort
- to use SWV as an additional shield against virus attacks (OS modifications stay in the layer)
Which hints would I appreciate?
- Are Global Excludes valid during capture? I hope so, and this would mean I do not capture temporary expanding of setup packages into TEMP folders, Windows browser history actions, or recycle actions during install. Still, some of my captured layers contain those data and I do not know why.
- Is the SWV 6.1 SP6 MP1 HF1 capable of using an alternate layer redirect? The older versions had a setup command line switch.
- Could the SWV Admin Console Global Excludes GUI be enhanced? For 25 drive letters plus some environment variables, the lines exceed the GUI size, and the GUI does not allow resizing nor scroll to the bottom
- Would someone like to provide a multi-Layer export/import tool, like FireFox' SVS MultiTool did?
- How can I best edit Layer registry entries, aside from the SWV Admin console: is it better to use Regedit when the Layer is active, and how to access the entries of the Layer then, or is there a way to edit the files in fslrdr...?
Comments
FireFox? Me?
To answer your question, AAConsole (SWV Edition) is perfectly fine to change those settings.
F
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Frank Bastiaens
Senior Technical Consultant
Vanderlet B.V.
Some answers
Global excludes are not active during capturing. So even if you exclude, the temp files will go in the package. Although cleaningup is pretty easy.
Simple method to overcome the gui problem is click with your mouse on one off the lines in the gui and use the cursor key,s to go beyond the gui.
That works pretty fine.
Franks multitool is the only freeware tool that can do multi import as far as i know, but you can also take a look at the dvs smart free, that is free for download on www.dinamiqs.com.
Editing the registry is best done within the swv admin with the layer deactivated.
Hope this helps
Regards Erik www.DinamiQs.com Dinamiqs is the home of VirtualStorm (www.virtualstorm.org)
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Must have missed this but
Must have missed this but SWVadmin does do multi-import.
You can still have a different default layer redirect but you have to manually configure it, which can be a pain if you've got any layer's imported, but thankfully I've taken care of that for you: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/svsdriveswitch-juice-remix This tool will do all that for you and you really don't have to worry about it. I haven't tested the tool with recent versions of SWV, it should work, but if not there's a batch file that will do the same thing but it takes much longer to migrate everything.
If you need to edit something, say a text file, that's inside a layer just go to C:\FSLRDR (or wherever you install SWV too) and edit it there--it's what I do--but make sure the layer isn't active.
If a forum post solves your problem please flag is as the solution
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