Selective migration of virtualized applications and configuration settings thereof

A method for executing a virtual application for a user, the method comprising:

• receiving a base virtual application package from a virtual application repository, wherein the base virtual application package comprises a plurality of application settings that define a base application state;
• executing the base virtual application package based on the plurality of application settings to provide a virtualized execution environment for executing the virtual application;
• modifying the virtualized execution environment to merge in prior user configurations obtained using an application configurations template, wherein the application configurations template is generated by executing a process comprising:
• providing a temporary virtualized execution environment having the application installed thereon, the application being in a base application state;
• capturing a first snapshot of the temporary virtualized execution environment;
• performing one or more user configurations of the application;
• capturing a second snapshot of the temporary virtualized execution environment;
• and
• processing the first and second snapshots to determine a location of application settings modified between the first and second snapshots;
• determining a subset of the plurality of application settings that have been customized during execution of the base virtual application package;
• recording the subset of the plurality of application settings in a sandbox directory, wherein, after said recording, the subset of application settings are isolated from the application settings not in the subset;
• and
• generating a virtual application package that includes the subset of application settings for the virtual application associated with the user, wherein the virtual application package is to be merged with the virtual execution environment provided by the base virtual application package.

A method for providing an application for a user on a computer system, the method comprising:

• receiving, from the user, a request for a virtual application, the request comprising a user identifier associated with the user;
• retrieving a first virtual application package from a virtual application repository, wherein the first virtual application package includes a first plurality of application settings that define a base application state for the virtual application;
• retrieving, from a storage system, a second virtual application package of a user configurations repository based on the user identifier, wherein the second virtual application package includes a second plurality of application settings for the virtual application that define one or more user configurations of the virtual application for the user;
• and
• providing the first and second virtual application packages to the user, wherein the first virtual application package is to be linked to the second virtual application package such that, when the virtual application is executed, configuration settings included in the second plurality of application resources override corresponding configuration settings included in the first plurality of application resources,
• wherein the second virtual application package is generated based on an application configurations template that identifies a location within an execution environment of a subset of application settings of the application that are determined to be customizable by the user,
• wherein the applications configurations template is generated by executing a process including:
• providing a temporary virtualized execution environment having the application installed thereon, the application being in a base application state;
• capturing a first snapshot of the temporary virtualized execution environment;
• performing one or more user configurations of the application;
• capturing a second snapshot of the temporary virtualized execution environment;
• and
• processing the first and second snapshots to determine a location of application settings modified between the first and second snapshots.