The heart of BoxedApp is the mechanism of intercepting calls to the operating system in the so-called user-mode). Unlike the systems that run in the kernel mode, BoxedApp does not require installing drivers and, hence, having the administrator privileges. In particular, BoxedApp intercepts all the calls that an application makes for using the file system.

BoxedApp introduces the concept of virtual file - a "file" that does not physically exist the disk, but the application runs as if the "file" actually existed there. For example, an application attempts to open a virtual file "C:\backslash\1.dll", by issuing the respective call. BoxedApp gets the control and checks the path to the file to be opened. If the path points to a virtual file, instead of calling the original file open function, BoxedApp returns a virtual handle that points to the virtual file.

A set of virtual files forms a virtual file system.

The virtual file system is shared among all the processes that share a virtual environment.

Read more:

• Creating Virtual File
• IStream-based Virtual File