When using AppDNA’s Install Capture feature for importing your legacy setup.exe applications, it is possible to configure the guest VM and Install Capture Execution Profile to skip the initial ‘Before Snapshot’ step, saving you up to 1/3 of the overall processing time for each app! This is useful if you have a large base image that takes a long time to capture and/or you have a lot of install captures to do. It can also help you if there are some common installation prerequesits that you do not want to be part of the snapshot. Simply install them before you take the ‘Before Snapshot’.

Heres how…

  • Start by Configuring Install capture for the default ‘Snapshot’ profileĀ  in the normal way
  • Make a copy of the default ‘Snapshot’ execution profile by re importing from the templates on disk.

  • Select this newly imported profile and click edit

  • Delete the ‘Before Snapshot’ step from ths new Execution Profile and rename it e.g. Snapshot After only

  • Make this new Execution Profile the default.

  • Take the VM that has been previosly correctly configured for the default Install Capture profile and revert it to the appropriate VM snapshot
  • Open a command prompt on the Install Capture guest VM and run the following command to manually generate the ‘Before Snapshot’.

“C:\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\VM Configuration\ossnapshot.exe” -cfg:”C:\Program Files\Citrix\AppDNA\VM Configuration\cfg.xml” -out:”c:\windows\temp\before.snap” -diff

  • Shut down the machine and take a new snapshot of the VMs current state
  • Return to the AppDNA console, select your VM Configuration Profile and click on the Advanced edit button.
    • Select the Provider Plugin tab, highlight the snapshot setting and click Edit
    • In the dialog that shows enter the name you gave the new VM snapshot e.g. Install Capture With Before Snap

  • Run Install Capture as you normally would from the Application Import screen. Verify that the ‘Snapshot After Only’ Execution Profile is being used. If it is not the default, select it in the drop down list for each application in the list you want to use the new profile.

VoilĆ”! When the install capture runs, it no longer needs to capture the ‘Before Snapshot’ and goes straight to the installation step. When it gets to the A’fter Snapshot’, this still needs to be done but it wil be compared to the snapshot that was taken out of band and is stored on the base VM snapshot.