title: How to create a virtual application (and run it) on a fully offline computer
body: <p>The company that I work for has over 12,000 in-use laptops that we service and update frequently. These laptops are unable to connect to the internet, so any updates that need to be done to them we need to do personally using discs. We would like to upgrade all of these laptops to Windows 10 64-bit at the same time, and have one parent image for all of the laptops (because right now we have over 500 slightly different images). However, some of the people we service need to use programs that are only compatible with Windows 7 or even XP. I want to be able to run these legacy programs on our Windows 10 laptops through the use of virtual applications or virtual machines. </p>
  
  <p>As I said above, the laptops cannot connect to the internet to validate or download anything offline. Any programs that I need to install will need to be downloaded and installed via CD. I have looked into VirtualBox and VMware Player as virtual machine options, and they don’t do exactly what I need. I have also looked into application virtualization through programs like ThinApp and App-V, but I don’t think these would work because the laptops are 100% offline and don’t actually connect to a network. </p>
  
  <p>I want to be able to put a shortcut on the desktop of the Host computer to an application, have the user double click on that shortcut and it open the application running in a VM. When the application closes, I want the VM to close with it as if it were never open in the first place. I also want the application to look like it is running natively on the Host computer, with the task on the taskbar and no second taskbar or options menu from the VM in the way.</p>
  
  <p>I know this is a lot to ask, but I am stumped as to what to do. Thank you for your help.</p>