Method for emulation of a virtual OS bookmark on a host desktop

A computer-implemented method for emulation of a virtual application bookmark on a host desktop, the method comprising:

• launching a host operating system (OS) on host computer system;
• starting a Virtual Machine (VM) running a guest OS with at least one non-native application and a corresponding non-native application shortcut, wherein the guest OS is a different type of operating system than the host OS and wherein the non-native application is incompatible with the host OS and cannot execute under the host OS;
• in a Virtual Machine Monitor, acquiring data of the non-native application shortcut;
• generating a host-side native shortcut based on the data of the non-native application shortcut when the non-native application shortcut is dragged or copied from the VM to the host side,
• wherein the native shortcut includes a wrapper representing a first file within a second file, the first file representing the non-native shortcut of the Guest OS and the second file representing the native shortcut visible to the host OS, and wherein the first file includes a source icon file;
• rendering a host icon on a host desktop,
• wherein an image of the host icon is generated by a virtual machine monitor for the host desktop by (i) issuing a system call inside to the guest OS, (ii) receiving from the guest OS a guest icon in a native format of the Guest OS, and (iii) converting the received guest icon to a native format of the host OS;
• linking the host icon to an executable file of the non-native application that resides in the VM,
• wherein the host icon contains the data of the non-native application shortcut, a graphical image of the non-native application shortcut and a link to the executable file,
• wherein the host icon has an appearance that matches the non-native shortcut application instead of a generic icon, and
• wherein the non-native application in the VM is launcheable using the host-side native shortcut.

A computer-implemented system for emulation of an application bookmark on a host desktop, the system comprising:

• a memory device;
• and
• a hardware processor of a host computer system configured to execute a host operating system (OS) with a host desktop and a Virtual Machine (VM) with a guest OS, a non-native application, and a non-native application shortcut for the non-native application;
• wherein the processor is further configured to:
• generate a native shortcut on the host side when the non-native application shortcut is dragged or copied from the VM to the host side, wherein the native shortcut includes a wrapper representing a first file within a second file, the first file representing the non-native shortcut of the Guest OS and the second file representing the native shortcut, and wherein the first file includes a source icon file;
• and
• render an icon for the native shortcut on the host desktop,
• wherein an image of the icon on the host desktop is generated by a virtual machine monitor for the host desktop by (i) issuing a system call inside to the guest OS, (ii) receiving from the guest OS a guest icon in a native format of the Guest OS, and (iii) converting the received guest icon to a native format of the host OS, and
• launch the non-native application inside the VM from the host desktop using the host-side native shortcut.