Deswik.Suite Portable (Application Virtualisation)
The Deswik.Suite release cycle employs Agile methodologies (see this link for more detail) to provide our customers with the latest patches and functionality as soon as they are available. While our end-users love this approach, it can provide a few deployment challenges for their IT departments.
In order to ensure our end-users can get these latest patches and versions while adhering to their company’s IT policies, we’ve released an executable (Deswik.Suite.Portable) that is based on application virtualisation technology. It doesn’t require administrative privileges to run and doesn’t actually install anything on the computer.
It’s still the same Deswik.Suite install files, just packaged in a single executable (like a zip archive). These install files, when run, run in their own “sandbox” and are cached (copied) to the user’s profile. Similarly, registry entries are cached from the executable to the user’s registry settings.
Deswik.Suite.Portable can be run effectively on a local disk, USB drive or network share. Double-clicking on the Deswik.Suite.Portable EXE presents the user with a menu to select the Deswik application to run (ie. Deswik.CAD). To run another application from the same Portable EXE, just double-click it again and pick the next application to run.
Switching backwards and forwards between Deswik.Suite.Portable patches/versions is easy – just keep the versions you require on hand and double-click the version you require to run. (Note: you can only run one version at a time. Make sure you shut down all Deswik applications (cleanly) before switching from one version/patch to the next.)
Deswik.Suite.Portable is available for download on the Client Portal. New versions are released weekly when new patches and versions of the traditional installer are released.
Technical Details
- Application files (and any file changes) are cached to %USERPROFILE%AppDataRoamingVOS
- Registry changes otherwise written to HLKM or HKCU are written to HKCUSoftwareVOS
- The Application Virtualisation technology used if from Cameyo.
- User-specific files that would otherwise be placed in C:ProgramDataDeswik can be referenced in one of two different ways:
- Best Practice is to set a company-wide shared network location in Deswik.CAD | Tools | Options | External Files
- Alternatively, you can add/delete/modify files to the local portable instance through Deswik.CAD | Tools | Options | Local Files
Troubleshooting
Should you have problems starting any Deswik applications from the portable version, please run Suite.Portable.64bit.vX.X.XXXX.exe -Remove from the command-line to remove all cached copies of files and associated registry settings. This removes any potentially corrupt files and settings that may prevent the applications from running, unfortunately it all removes any changes so all the users settings are also lost.
Should you have any questions or issues with Deswik.Suite.Portable, please contact support@deswik.com for further assistance.
