What isolation is intended to accomplish

RunContainer places applications in managed environments. Keeping applications apart in this way is called isolation.

The goals

Isolation in RunContainer is intended to:

• Limit an application's footprint. Keep its files and settings within its environment, instead of across your PC.
• Separate applications from each other. Stop an application in one environment from interfering with applications in another.
• Make clean-up predictable. Let you get rid of an application by dealing with one environment.
• Support careful experimentation. Give you a place to try software that's kept apart from the tools you depend on.

What it means for you

• You can keep work, personal and experimental software in different environments.
• If an application causes a problem, the effect is intended to be contained to its environment. You can then reset or remove it.
• Your everyday desktop stays tidier, because applications aren't installed into it directly.

What the settings say

The Settings tab describes what RunContainer does on this PC:

• Every app runs in its own space, with its own files, its own data folder, and limits on memory and CPU.
• If a prepared virtual-machine image is already available, RunContainer uses it automatically for a stronger boundary.

Either way, nothing runs unguarded: if the environment can't be established, RunContainer refuses to launch the app.

What it doesn't mean

Isolation reduces risk. It doesn't remove it. Read Isolation is not a guarantee before relying on RunContainer for anything you're worried about.