Now that Window Embedded Standard 7 has been shipped, it’s time to start showing off and releasing some of the cool stuff that we have been doing around application templates. We’re providing templates to make development of Standard 7 images quicker and easier. These templates provide the set of dependencies needed for an application to install and run. To learn more about templates, take some time to check out the Compatible Applications website or take a look at this earlier blog article.

New Templates
We’ve recently added 17 new applications & templates to the Compatible Applications website, expanding the scope beyond Microsoft applications to include third-party applications as well as some important anti-virus, security, and thin client applications. Below is the full list of 17 applications for which we recently released templates:

• Adobe Flash 10
• Adobe Reader 9
• CA eTrust Antivirus 7.1
• Citrix Offline App Plugin 6
• Citrix XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps 11
• Java Runtime Environment 1.5
• Microsoft Hyper-V Drivers
• McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 8.7i
• Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010
• Microsoft Security Essentials
• Microsoft Silverlight 4
• Microsoft SQL Express 2008 R2
• Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007
• Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package
• Microsoft XNA 3.1
• Symantec Endpoint Protection 11

Package Mapper
On May 7^th, Package Mapper was published on MSDN Code Gallery. Package Mapper is a PowerToy we released publicly because we found it to be quite useful as we created templates. The purpose of Package Mapper is to take a list of Windows binaries (exes, dlls, etc.) and map them to the packages within Standard 7 in which the binaries are contained. The packages are output in the easy-to-use format of an answer file, which can then be fed right into ICE. To learn more about Package Mapper and to begin using it, visit the download page: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/packagemapper.

 
Package Mapper’s Interface

On the Horizon
We’re excited about the two recent updates and releases, but the best is yet to come in the world of application templates! In the next few months some major updates and changes will be happening to the website and templates, including:

• A complete re-design of the website to include searching, sorting, and improved usability.
• A documentation & help section that will include whitepapers, blog articles, screencasts, and links to aid in learning and using application templates or doing dependency analysis.
• Several more third-party templates and updates to existing templates.
• Another PowerToy to aid in the comparison of answer files & templates.
• Per-template documentation with information on each application, usage scenarios, and optional dependencies or additional downloads & binaries.

With the work that’s already been done and the introduction of the items mentioned above, application templates will really allow developers to speed up the development process and increase the quality of images when preparing them to work for specific applications.

- JT