Application Isolation Wizard - Manifests etc

[CChong]

I have a compliancy requirement for a desktop build that requires that every application installed on an XP desktop must be garaunteed to always use the dlls, ocx's etc that it was originally installed with. i.e. complete isolation of every product.
Several of the applications use COM information, so clearly manifest's are the way forward, to store this information in the XML files.

A question:

If I add any other information to the component - say registry settings (or other com information, that may be caught in the snapshot, but is not neccesarily in the progid/inproc32 section etc, does not get placed in the XML component ) is there a way to put it in the file, and will it be picked up if so? From what I can see it is ignored in its current state.
- According to Technet it states it is possible to install all applications using this methodology by using XCOPY, so I assume there must be a way.

Does anyone have any experience with using great chunks of registry in the manifest's ?

Kind Regards
Mike Gibson
HP Managed Services.

[RobertDickau]

My understanding is that application and assembly manifests can contain COM information, but not other registry information; if your setup needs to write to the registry, create shortcuts, create an uninstaller, and so forth, XCOPY won't be enough...