If using a VMware virtual machine with ThinApp to package .NET applications, be aware that VMware Tools may install shared DLL’s into the %windows%\system32 directory which are also used by .NET Framework components.

Since the DLLs are available during the first ThinApp snapshot, the DLLs will not be seen as “newly installed” when ThinApp executes its post-install snapshot and thus, not be included as part of the .NET application package.

When the package is launched from a client device which does not have VMware Tools loaded, it will fail with a “dependency failure”. So, if you will be packaging .NET applications with ThinApp, consider doing so on a machine which does not have VMware Tools installed.