App-V 4.6 Service Pack 3 Now Available

To bring support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 to App-V 4.6, Microsoft has released Service Pack 3 (SP3). In addition, Remote Desktop Services for the new operating system version are also available in SP3.

SP3 also addresses all of the issues found after the release of SP2, provided in a hotfix rollup.

SP3 is now available for download from: Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 Service Pack 3

What is App-V?

App-V, formerly called SoftGrid, is actually the result of an acquisition Microsoft made in 2006. When Microsoft acquired Softricity, the solution's developer, Microsoft was able to bring application virtualization into its growing System Center stack.

App-V, the product, allows administrators to install applications within virtual machines on servers, and then stream the applications to multiple clients across the organization. The difference between an App-V application solution and a standard dumb terminal implementation is that applications served through App-V can be cached locally so that clients can continue using them if the connection to the virtual machine is lost. App-V applications run in "sandboxes," protecting the rest of the computer against local changes to the file system or registry. Also, since the applications run in a virtual sandbox on the client, end-users can run multiple versions of the same application, or run legacy applications that might not work correctly on a more current operating system running on the local PC.