Test Office 2010 beta without installing it!
Article by Danny Knox
Ya, right. Part of my proof of concept work aside from MDOP delivery, SCCM/MDT and desktop I/O is to demo up and coming products like Office 2010. A lot of our clients want to know how well it works with Vista and Windows 7 and what kind of interaction it might have with their installed apps – that whole regression testing thing. We suggest you virtualize it with Microsoft’s App-V for application virtualization and stream it for local use. Or in my case as an often disconnected road warrior I installed the App-V 4.6 beta client on my Win 7 64 Ultimate laptop in stand alone mode and utilize the App-V MSI option for the package to be cached and run locally without a server to stream it the first time.
For a detailed write up on the App-V Stand Alone Mode, the overview, prerequisites, installation and configuration check out http://www.app-v.in.
When the App-V client is installed in stand alone mode it doesn’t know about App-V Management Servers, Active Directory, SQL databases or SCCM – yet all of the goodness of App-V caching and launching with the benefit of protecting the registry, file system and overall system health is all put into play. You can test Office 2010 beta without having to actually install it and if your desktop/laptop/thin client/VDI/MED-V/Terminal Service/Citrix client system already has Office 2007 you can run both from the same system – one locally installed and the other virtualized with App-V.
For more info on the integration of App-V 4.6 beta and Office 2010 beta check out the App-V Team Blog. If your enterprise has a Microsoft EA agreement with SA on the desktop we’d enjoy the opportunity to partner with you on an MDOP engagement with possible funding from Microsoft with credits that you might already have. Great time to put Office 2010 through its paces – and in a way that makes best use of in place systems for testing. Subtle sustainability blurb there – another way IT can do it’s part.
