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I am looking for open source solutions that provide application virtualization for Windows! In other words an open source to ThinApp from VMWare.

I have found several commercial options, but nothing open source:

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/appv/dynamic.mspx

http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/overview.html

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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Cameyo offers free Application Virtualization and works very well. VirtualBox is typically used for OS virtualization.

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An important note of caution about Cameyo -- it includes this "red flag" on its download page ( cameyo.com/download.aspx ): "... some heuristics anti-viruses are reported to trigger false detections on Cameyo's executables ..." – Randolf Richardson May 11 '11 at 20:22
You are correct. I will add that in my testing, the only 2 antivirus vendors that have flagged anything were Trend Micro and the free version of AVG (The paid version offers no such balking at the files, oddly enough). Both of those so far were only triggered by Skype. – Amartel May 11 '11 at 20:38
@Amartel: AVG-free detects it, but AVG-paid doesn't? That is really odd. Were you using the same versions of the virus signature files (I'm only curious, that's all)? – Randolf Richardson May 11 '11 at 20:40
I was shocked myself, but have been able to reproduce it 100% of the time. Only package so effected was Skype. I have only tested about 2 dozen apps, but the rest work flawlessly. And yes, both DBs were the most current. I sent a report to AVG for this, but never received a response. – Amartel May 11 '11 at 20:48
I am looking for open source solution, and I am a littl eunclear if they are open source or not. – GeorgeU May 11 '11 at 20:54
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

After some searching I was able to find one open source project: http://code.google.com/p/appstract/

Haven't tested it, but is open source.

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up vote 0 down vote

VirtualBox will do the job very nicely on both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, 2003, and 2008. It is free, and open source, and it works very well to virtualize a wide range of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating Systems.

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I think he meant App virtualization, not OS virtualization. – geoffc May 11 '11 at 20:38
@geoffc: Hmm, you may be right. =D – Randolf Richardson May 11 '11 at 20:42
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I am looking for app virtualization, and virtualbox is OS virtualization. – GeorgeU May 11 '11 at 20:52
App virtualization is quite different from OS Vz – uSlackr May 11 '11 at 21:00
Sorry @GeorgeU, I see now that I must've misread your question. Perhaps this might be helpful (depending on what it is you're trying to do -- I'm hoping this effort at least makes up for my error)? Quite a few people have been recommending Sandboxie ( sandboxie.com ) to me over the past few months. Now, I can't determine whether it's open source, and there seems to be a "paid for" version, but they do appear to provide a free version. If all you're after is isolation, then this (or, better yet, an open source alternative) might be a helpful one to look at. – Randolf Richardson May 12 '11 at 1:31
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up vote 0 down vote

Open source Ulteo's Open Virtual Desktop has both VDI and Application Virtualization. For Windows, you could have only Application Server, available for 2003/2008 x86/x64.

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up vote 0 down vote

sandboxie.com is the best one I have ran across. It let you virtualize an app creating a sandbox around it. After installing it creates an icon for a virtualized version of IE automatically.

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