InstallAware Software has launched the latest version of InstallAware Virtualization 5, an application virtualization tool for ISVs and enterprises deploying and re-packaging software on Microsoft Windows.

InstallAware Virtualization 5 includes a completely re-written version of PackageAware, employing new proprietary techniques and advanced low level optimizations. PackageAware for InstallAware Virtualization 5 has now become the fastest setup capture in the industry, eliminating the need for clean machine captures, while retaining the capability to work with full system state snapshots.

Any customer who is able to demonstrate faster sequencing (based on the system snapshot method) than PackageAware is entitled to a free license under the InstallAware Virtualization 5 Challenge.

The new version of PackageAware may now compare any two arbitrary system snapshots during sequencing; including snapshots sourced from physically different hardware and/or operating systems - delivering the ultimate flexibility, together with breakneck speed, in virtualizing applications.

InstallAware Virtualization 5 produces truly portable, independent, single-file executables when an application is virtualized. These EXEs do not extract any files to the target system when being run, and can be carried on and run from a portable USB stick - without needing any privileges on the host system.

InstallAware Virtualization 5 is based on an agentless architecture, which eliminates the need to pre-install agent software on target devices. InstallAware Virtualization 5 is also licensed royalty-free, and does not require separate client access licenses for each user during deployment.

In addition to PackageAware, applications may be virtualized by manually authoring them in the InstallAware Virtualization IDE. Of course, it is also possible to touch-up projects sequenced using PackageAware in the IDE.

Any existing InstallAware setup project may also be converted into an InstallAware Virtualization project using the one-click conversion utility. Combined with the free edition of InstallAware for Visual Studio, this provides software developers a streamlined, two-click process to build any of their Visual Studio solutions as an InstallAware Virtualization virtualized application.