Justin Zarb (MS) recently published a blog entry that Microsoft is now able to virtualize fonts on Terminal Server using the fairly new SoftGrid 4.1 SP1 Client.  This is great news as it use to be a PITA to need to push font installs to a base system before deploying virtualized apps that relied on those fonts being present.  That being said, I really wish that Microsoft would publish a full change log of things that are in each client/sequencer release.  It's unfortunate that these things have to be discovered through blogs instead of a nice readme.

The SoftGrid Team has put up a blog entry explaining a bug in the management console that causes it to crash when it processes icons that are non-symmetrical pixels (i.e. not square).  Here's a link to the KB article with the details.  Unfortunately, there's not a fix for the console.  You just need to make your icons symmetrical.  Then again, there shouldn't be all that many icons that are affected by this issue.

The SoftGrid Team blog published an entry today that describes the three methods for upgrading Softgrid applications.  The three types are:1) Active Upgrade - You open the existing package up in the sequencer, install your updates and add the package version to the Management Console.  New launch requests for the package will begin using the new version.2) Completely new sequence - You build a completely new sequence.  The new sequence will need to be streamed down to new clients, but a client can run both versions simultaneously.  The downside is the user preferences from the old version of the app are not carried into the new package.3) Branched package - You approach a branched package like an ActiveUpgrade, only you perform a Save As function which will create a separate package GUID and asset folder.  This operates like a completely new sequence in that both can operate at the same time, the difference is that you avoid having to recreate...

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From an entry on John Howard's blog, I've learned that Server 2008 RC0 with Vridian just hit MSDN last night.  I'm off to download it now.  BTW, John also posted a nice entry on the steps required to install Vridian (no server core option just yet).

I recently had a need to convert a few SoftGrid-related VMs from VMware Server 1.02 VMs to one of my ESX 3.x hosts.  I needed to do this because VMware Server only allows for a single snapshot/revert path.  While sequencing/testing applications in SoftGrid, it's ideal to have multiple VM snapshots to be able to revert back to a variety of timelines.  I have explained many different methods of converting VMs and have detailed a few of the processes (complete with screeshots).  I hope this helps someone out there who may need to do the same thing.  Read the full article here.

I came across a blog post from Dave Caddick referencing an article from Channel Register that seemed to indicate that Microsoft's Viridian hypervisor is under 1MB footprint???  There's been a lot of conversation around VMware's introduction of the ESX3i Embedded virtualization platform that boots off flash memory in less than 32 MB, but 1MB? that's pretty insane.  According to the article, it came from Mike Neil (Microsoft) who should be a trusted resource on the matter.  I'm a little unsure on Mike/Microsoft's lack of value seen in an embedded virtualization platform as their reasoning for not wanting to do it is that you still have to store your virtual images somewhere....duh! of course you do, but that's what SAN disk is for.  However, the question still remains as to whether it's more...

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In a blog post from the VMGuru site, I learned that the upcoming VI3 book from Ron Oglesby, Mike Laverick, and Scott Herold has three free chapters that were released on Friday.  The three free chapters can be obtained on the homepage of the book vi3book.com

Looks to be a good read...

The SoftGrid Team blog has two nice blog entries that illustrate the communications between a SoftGrid Client and a SoftGrid server during Desktop Config refresh as well during an application launch.  These articles are quite informative if you're not familiar with the networking protocols/ports that are used during these actions.

Tim Mangan directed me to an article from Mary Jo Foley where states that since the inception of the MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) Microsoft has sold 2 million licenses.  Without argument, most of those sales were probably due to the SoftGrid acquisition (though I wouldn't complain about getting the fantastic SysInternals tools too).  While many people (including me) would like to see Microsoft separate SoftGrid from the SA requirement, it seems pretty clear that they are definitely driving value to the SA business through SoftGrid.  Therefore, it seems unlikely that Microsoft would separate SoftGrid.  In either case, this clearly demonstrates the demand for SoftGrid.  Interesting times ahead....

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Over at the SoftGrid Team Blog, Microsoft posted information that the new Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2007 has been released (which includes SoftGrid 4.2).  The VAS components have not been updated since SG 4.1 SP1, so no update is required on your servers (just the client and sequencer).

Shawn