WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Virtual Computer Inc., the company redefining PC lifecycle management through virtualisation, today announced the availability of NxTop 1.1. Since it was first released for sale in April 2009, NxTop has differentiated itself with its ability to deploy a single, centrally managed Windows desktop environment to all users while maintaining user-specific personalization on each PC. Release 1.1 brings further innovation in this area by introducing System Workbench. This new element of NxTop's award-winning management system employs file system layering to isolate elements of the system to improve backup performance, retain end-user installed programs and settings and provide desktop IT managers with tools to manipulate the file system and registry. NxTop 1.1 is available immediately through the company's NxTop Now! program which provides early adopters access to the product prior to general availability.
"Adoption of desktop virtualisation is hampered if the IT department cost savings come at the expense of end-user flexibility and convenience," said Dan McCall, president and CEO, Virtual Computer. "Techniques such as virtual disk segmentation, user profile virtualisation, and file system layering are the preferred methods to overcoming this challenge. With the release of System Workbench, Virtual Computer leads the market in retaining end-user personalization in shared virtual images."
Shared Image Management
Since its inception, NxTop has allowed IT administrators to build a single, Windows virtual image that can be shared across their entire organization. Updates to this shared image are performed centrally on the NxTop Center management console. At boot time, NxTop presents a Windows desktop to the end-user that is a composite of the latest shared system image, user-specific profiles and settings, and any non-permanent PC data such as caches and index files.
With System Workbench, IT administrators can now control which aspects of their "gold" operating system image may be customized and retained by the end-user. Through a policy-based interface with a simple XML-based authoring language, System Workbench provides powerful new capabilities, such as:
