Balaji’s Blog

Happy with limited virtualization

Every Windows user is familiar with the effects of bitrot – but answers to that problem are few.

My early attempts at using virtualization software (first post, followup) were disappointing to say the least and Windows’ own built-in “solution” System Restore, is a spectacular failure. The best answer right now is Virtual PC – but unless you are running a top of the line rig, it’s memory requirements are just too steep.

My own virtualization requirements are limited – I want to be able to quickly install and uninstall various demo applications and not bad dll files and registry entries infesting my PC like an invasion of roaches.

Sandboxie has proven to be just right for my needs. Once you install Sandboxie, any installed program can be run in a virtual environment – all writes to your hard drive, changes to the registry hive etc. are trapped in an intermediate layer. Once you are done, just choose the option “Delete contents of sandbox” and voila! everything is back to where it was before. Conveniently, Sandboxie adds an right-click option to all executables to “Run Sandboxed”, which is extremely convenient when running installer software¹

From a usability perspective – I am a little baffled by the fact that the “Sandboxie Explorer” and “Sandboxie Start Menu” cannot be accessed from the Sandboxie tray icon. Given that virtualized installs are only accessible from the Sandboxie Start Menu, this oversight gets very annoying, very quickly.

Despite that small niggle, I still believe that Sandboxie is the best light-weight virtualization software available for Windows right now, especially one that is freeware. Altiris SVS and System Restore have the right idea – the ability to create “states” or “layers” that one can rollback to at any time, but the implementation is too flawed to make them a compelling solution.

1. Of course, some installer software just doesn’t work well with Sandboxie but then this is typical of any attempt to “clean-up” program installs in Windows – witness the difficulties of Windows Vista [↩]

Program Virtualization for everyone

It has always been a problem for me that I go through certain phases of rapidly installing and uninstalling software when looking for a good utility.

Typically that means lots and lots of registry entries that never get cleaned out and eventually my PC grinds to a halt, forcing me to spend 2 days on reformatting and reinstalling.

I read about SVS on Lifehacker today and it seems like an extremely useful solution.

A free virtualization program that traps all changes made by a program in a separate layer, allowing you to keep your base OS clean. Uninstalling is as simple as deactivating a “layer” and voila! all files and registry settings disappear.

You can read more about SVS in this lifehacker article.

Download it here.