Immidio Flex Profiles Express Edition (version 6.0.x) and its predecessor Login Consultants Flex Profile Kit are well established user profile management solutions. Thousands of corporate customers around the world implemented one of these Flex Profiles freeware editions in their Windows environments. The reason for this is very simple: Flex Profiles is based on a proven methodology, it is lightning fast, it does not require extra backend servers and it only leaves a small footprint in memory and network – advantages appreciated by many IT professionals and system administrators.

Now, given the facts that Immidio Flex Profiles Express Edition is so good and available for free, why would anybody want to go for a retail edition of Immidio Flex Profiles? People started asking me this question since we announced a retail edition of Immidio Flex Profiles. In the following, I give you 11 good reasons making Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition an attractive option.

1. Support: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is an officially supported product, automatically taking advantage of the Immidio Response support offerings.
2. Additional operating system platforms: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition was not only tested on Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services and Citrix XenApp 4.5/5.0, but is also supported on Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, extending the scope of Flex Profiles to the current server and workstation platforms. The upcoming Immidio Flex Profiles Version 7.0 will also support Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services.
3. 64 Bit: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is shipped with both 32-bit and 64-bit runtime components (FlexEngine), with the 64-bit FlexEngine allowing full access to the registry and the file system on 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows.
4. Automated generation of application configuration files: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition introduces a mechanism that automates the administrator’s work during the process of generating application-specific Flex Profiles configuration files (.ini files). As a result, Flex Profiles application configuration files can be produced easily by less experienced IT professionals and system administrators. This feature is also beneficial for more experienced IT professionals as it removes the need to manually go through some boring and repetitive activities when creating application configuration files.
5. Graphical management console: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition includes a graphical workbench, providing an easy-to-use management environment for application configuration files (.ini files) and other important Flex Profiles settings.
6. Windows Group Policy integration: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition hooks into Microsoft Active Directory, allowing central configuration of the Flex Profiles runtime component through Group Policy Objects in addition to the established command-line parameters.
7. Profile archive compression and streaming: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition has built-in compression and streaming algorithms creating profile files optimized for networks with limited bandwidth.
8. Simple framework configuration: The free editions of Flex Profiles include so-called framework scripts for adaptation to individual customer requirements. All of the logic included in the framework scripts was moved into the runtime component of Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition, simplifying the configuration effort significantly.
9. On-demand elevated user privileges: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition introduces an optional service that gives users access to predefined areas of the registry with elevated user rights. This allows the modification of a user’s individual password and certificate settings from a non-privileged context.
10. Application streaming support: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is compatible to application streaming and isolation technologies, such as Microsoft App-V.
11. Common settings: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition supports a number of common Windows-related settings without the need for specific .ini files.

In summary, Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition was optimized to fulfill common requirements of corporate environments in terms of management, compliance and supportability. If you want to learn more about Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition, contact us through info@immidio.com.

When looking at all the different application provisioning methodologies available today, I get the feeling that you need a PHD if you want to keep track of how they work and what they require to give users fast access to dynamic application sets. On one side, new virtualization technologies ensure unprecedented application integrity, compatibility and stability. On the other side, there is a lack of commonly available self-controlled ways to assign these applications to users.

But I believe that this is exactly what matters; users want to have on-demand access to applications, independent of how they are provided or provisioned. In the best of all worlds, the users’ workspace environment would be able to predict which applications a user will need in the next minute. But giving the user a simple way to select and self-assigned required applications through an intuitive interface will also do the job. As a result the right icon is created on the user desktop or the start menu is populated as needed in that very moment.

Most application virtualization vendors are aware of this fact. So they tend to create a vendor-specific solution, allowing users to self-provision applications in their preferred fashion, leveraging only one specific technology. We at Immidio strongly believe that this is not what customers want because it’s an “all or nothing” approach. We think that a solution should be vendor-agnostic and independent of a specific application deployment mechanism. And this is exactly what Immidio AppScriber is about!

Immidio AppScriber allows Windows users to self-assign and run applications with no or only minimal delay. Most importantly, the underlying mechanism is completely platform-agnostic. For Immidio AppScriber it doesn’t make any difference if applications are provided through Microsoft Installer, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft RemoteApp, Citrix XenApp published applications, Citrix XenApp streamed applications or VMware ThinApp. There are no dependencies of a Citrix Receiver infrastructure or application streaming back-end services -only Active Directory is required. Immidio AppScriber makes an end to “vendor exclusiveness”, it allows a great variety of application provisioning solutions and products to be combined seamlessly.

Independent of the application provisioning platforms involved, an AppScriber administrator specifies the application sets users are authorized to access and tracks their usage through real-time reporting. From the user perspective, applications are presented through AppScriber’s configurable web front-end which may easily be integrated into existing corporate portals. The user interface is customizable to reflect the look and feel of the company. Since the list of available applications shows up in a familiar interface, no training is needed for business users.

Immidio AppScriber’s independence of application provisioning and deployment mechanisms is clearly one of its unique selling points. There is no “lock-in” effect to a specific technology. If you want to know more about this, feel free to contact us through info@immidio.com.