Installing Windows Media Player 9 on Windows 2000

Ya I don't think WMP is a supported app on 2000 because of how it's installed as a component.

Honestly, unless you need to migrate that layer to other machines, I'd just set up WMP to run as an autorun application inside a layer so that whenever it launches it's detected by SWV and any changes it makes to inside that layer.

Deploying the layer on other machines is exactly what I need to do. My task is to migrate a way to distribute an application from a completely preconfigured VMWare machine with all necessary apps installed to an SWV based solution. This is to avoid licensing costs for the OS inside the VM and the overhead of keeping track of these licenses.

In order for the software to work, certain 3rd party apps need to be installed (like Acrobat Reader, Real Player, etc.) as well as some Windows components (WMP, DirectX 9, some fonts) and certain configuration settings (security settings in IE). The 3rd party apps are already installed in an application layer. For WMP and DirectX we might need to ship installers with the software and install them in the base OS. I'm not sure how to determine that the fonts are installed and IE is configured properly. Maybe this can be done with scripting and telling the user to keep a Windows CD ready. But that's not exactly a user-friendly way to do it. :-/

I was hoping I could do all the installing and configuring under global capture in order to get everything into a layer. But I've learned that global capture is not recommended and there are issues with drivers and required restarts in DirectX for example.

Depending on the O/S you are working with, you could consider switching to the free version of Microsoft Virtual PC (2004 or 2005 IIRC), if license costs are the main consideration.
Regarding WMP and DirectX 9, I would strongly recommend that you not waste time trying to virtualise these and instead just script them to install silently and upgrade the current machine installs (assuming you have no machines too old for DX 9 ). They are indeed windows components and pretty tightly integrated with the operating system.

IE configuration is controlled by user registry settings, so you could set these registry keys as required for the best user experience - the Internet Explorer Admin Kit would be a good tool to use to set up the necessary configurations if you are new to this.
Regarding fonts - these too can be installed, but check whether they are licensed or free before you commit to a method of deployment.

Out of interest, what is the nature of your overall project?

Given the costs of managing all this, is there any merit in considering a solution that allows a mobile user to connect into the application using a GSM dongle and remote access such as Terminal Services or Citrix?

I can see your problem with the users potentially having an earlier version of the app installed, but what about the SQL database? Presumably this will need to be updated as well, so will you install a separate DB with your newer app, or just update the existing DB ?

One final thought - not sure if this is viable at all within your environment, but with Linux distributions such as Knoppix being able to boot from CD or DVD - could the application be hosted on a bootable optical media running under Linux?

Good idea to use some kind of remote access solution. As far as I know, some competitors who have a similar setup do exactly that. :) I'm just a contractor working on this for a month. Originally I was meant to do some programming, but my current task was given higher priority due to "popular demand". So I can't really say why this option was dismissed in favor of the VMWare based approach.

The SQL database has the same issue. In fact, I think it was the original reason to ship the app with the data, because the schema changed between releases. The plan right now is to have the database software installed in an application layer and configured to look for the data wherever the installer on the distribution media puts it.

Many components of the system would run on Linux, but there are some GUI apps that are not easily ported (MFC, etc.). Having the complete system working on multiple platforms would be great. But I think right now, getting there would be a huge undertaking.

I spent quite a long time trying to get SQL Server Express running in a layer. I was unable to do this because SVS does not support services in a virtualised environment. I have not tried with SWV as I don't believe anything has changed in its ability to handle services, and SQL does require a couple of services to be installed.
So unless someone has found a way to virtualise SQL, you will need to install the SQL server software into the base as well.

Thanks for the heads up. The database software used is Firebird. But it is installed as a service as well, IIRC. With every piece that cannot be virtualized the attractiveness of this approach diminishes, though.

edit: I just remembered that my first test of SWV was installing apache into a layer. That worked and apache is installed as a service on windows. So there is still hope. ;)

Let us know how you get on and whether you are able to get your database software working.

Just a quick update; Both services, Apache and Firebird seem to work inside an application layer. What I haven't tried is to include an ODBC connection in the layer as well. As far as I know, those configurations in the Control Panel are stored in the registry. When I have an installer that sets up everything I have so far automatically, I'll try adding the required registry entries. Another issue I need to test is what happens when I activate a layer containing Firebird on a machine that already has a running instance. The service inside the layer probably won't start since the Firebird TCP port is already open. Maybe I need to set the startup mode of the virtualized service to manual and add a program to the autostart of the layer that checks for running instances of Firebird, stops them and then starts the virtualized service.