You can adjust the level of compression that SVS applies when it creates a Virtual Software Archive (VSA). By adjusting this level, you can find a balance between performance and size. Jeremy Hurren shows us how to find the perfect balance.

If you have data that needs a different level of compression, you'll be happy to know there's a way you can change that (either per-layer or machine-wide). A perfect candidate would be my MP3 data layer which holds many gigabytes of data. Since the compression on MP3 files is infinitesimal, I choose to have them simply stored and not compressed at all to speed up the process.

The following setting will set the compression level machine-wide:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Altiris\FSL

CompressionLevel (DWORD) = 0-19 (5 is the default)

To set this for an individual layer, place the value under the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Altiris\FSL\1

(replace 1 with the...

Q:
Dean asked, "Does SVS resolve software conflicts differently than Wise Package Studio? If so, how are they different?"

A:
Hi Dean. ConflictManager (a component of Wise Package Studio) provides functionality for detecting and resolving conflicts prior to deployment, by tracking all desktop components (applications, drivers, base images, etc.) in a database called the Wise Software Repository. Conflict Manager then compares all of these components to identify potential conflicts, and provides guidance on optimizing your software packages. For conventional installers like MSIs, that could mean changing packages so that each application uses the same version of any shared components.

With SVS, conflicts are avoided by running each application from its own virtual layer. Each application always uses its own versions of any shared resources -- both files and registry keys, thereby avoiding software conflicts...

SVS Product Manager Scott Jones explains how prioritization of layers and classes came to be and how this added functionality can be useful to you.

One of our SVS beta testers posted a suggestion in the support forums that has influenced our development plans. I wanted to take the time to explain the suggestion and what our engineers are doing to implement it. Here's the post:

"Having the ability to layer applications is great, but it would be beneficial to have a switch that would change a package to run totally isolated/virtualized from other applications on the machine. Isolated packages would allow for quicker deploy, reduced testing, and a high level of confidence the activation would not cause an issue on the system."

This request (and others like it) was one of the key driving factors in our decision to take a step back after Beta 2 and reconsider the...

Q:
Travis asked, "If I am using SVS to distribute MS Word and Microsoft has a patch for it, can I patch a virtualized application on the desktop or would I patch the application then send out a new virtualized application?"

A:
Hi Travis, in the current release, which is 2.0, if you want to update the official version of the package, you will need to build a new package and redistribute the newly-virtualized application. However, if the patch uses MSI (like Office Updates do), SVS will recognize that the virtualized application is being patched and will put the patch into the app's writeable sublayer. Or if the update process is run from within the app itself (like Adobe and so many other things these days), the same thing will happen.

So even in this release, we do in most cases keep the updates together with the app inside the Virtual Software Package. There's just no way to granularly roll back only the...