Review: Cameyo Application Virtualization

I have just discovered, and played with Cameyo. Cameyo is a free application virtualization product that works a little like VMware ThinApp.

Installation

The download is less than 2MB and the installation is next, next, finish. After installation, Cameyo offers two programs. One program to capture and build packages. The other application can be used to modify packages.

Capture & build

Upon first launch of the capture program, an Internet activation is performed in the background, so you need Internet connection. After activation a pre-capture snapshot of the reference machine is taken. A next dialog tells you to start the installation process.

During the installation process, you can add any component and configure the application to your needs. When the application is installed and configured, simply click [Install done] to take a post-capture snapshot.

Once the post-capture is performed, the only thing left to do, is select the .exe that represents the actual application and a build is performed. The build results in a directory with some shortcuts and an <appname><version>.<appname>.virtual.exe. The last is the isolated application that can run on any Windows system.

Opinion

Looks simple? It is that simple. I have packaged Team Viewer and Opera without any problems. The packages ran fine on my Windows 7 x64 system.

Cameyo is not as enhanced as VMware ThinApp, but for simple application virtualization it is great. I would place it in the same category as Symantec Workspace Virtualization Personal Edition (download under Trialware) that is good code to simple isolate individual applications.

Try it yourself and download Cameyo.

My next stop will be Evalaze Application Virtualization (free for personal use), which looks a lot like Spoon (formerly know as Xenocode).

Advertisement