How to convert portable apps and games to work with Windows 7

I have created quite a few portable games and apps using VMware ThinApp. Since moving to Windows 7, i discovered that they will not work. All has something to do with the way Windows 7 works with dll's I think.

Any way...a new feature in ThinApp 4.5 is the Relink utility. Using this utility, it is very easy to update all your ThinApp apps and games to the latest ThinApp version. so they work on Windows 7. After installing VMware ThinApp 4.5 the relink utility can be found under C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\relink.exe

Relink will automatically make a backup of files it upgrades, so make sure you have enough disk space for 2 copies of your packages. As a special note, currently the AppLink feature in ThinApp requires that both the base package and the dependency packages be built using the same version of ThinApp.

Relink takes existing ThinApp packages in either .exe or .msi format and automatically upgrades them using the latest version of ThinApp. Relink accepts wildcard filenames and can work in recursive mode to upgrade all packages located under some parent directory.

1. Install the latest VMware ThinApp DOWNLOAD

2. Create a folder in your C drive. Call it something simple if you want (I used the name port) and copy the portable game or app to it.

3. Open up a cmd window and type cd C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware ThinApp\

4. Now type relink C:\port

5. Relink will now process the file.

NOTES:

- The relink.exe utility can use directory names to process all ThinApp files in that directory.

example: relink C:\port

- If you specify the -Recursive flag, the relink.exe utility processes all ThinApp files in the directory and all subdirectories. This flag is intended for use only with directory names.

example: relink.exe -Recursive C:\port

- If you want to use the new Memory Optimization or Quality Reporting features, you have to rebuild your application. Rebuild will use the new default setting for optimization, if not specified in the package.ini (OptimizeFor=Memory), while relink will use the old default behaviour (OptimizeFor=Disk).

Good luck with the conversions.