Windows Vista Team Blog : IT Professionals, Featured News

Essential Tool for the Job - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Windows Vista (RTM Announcement)

Baldwin Ng — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:53:00 GMT

RTM Announcement - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1

Hello,

It's been a few months since I last blogged about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 - formerly known as WVHA or Windows Vista Hardware Assessment. Today, I'd like to announce the RTM release of this tool with new capabilities including desktop security assessment, Hyper-V virtualization assessment, and more.

As you know, many of the IT pros out there like you are now spending a lot of time planning for Windows Vista deployments. But many question and challenges remain:

Are my existing PCs compatible to Windows Vista when it comes to Hardware and Device Compatibility?
Will my PCs have BIOS issues after the upgrade to Windows Vista?
Which of my PCs are ripe for an upgrade to Windows Vista? (e.g. CPU too old so it's time to replace them; or just add 512MB system memory and the PCs would be Windows Vista capable!)
What kind of software has been installed?
Are all of my PCs secure? Is Windows Security Center installed? Do they have Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware software installed? How about Windows Firewall settings?
What about application virtualization readiness?

The MAP Toolkit 3.1 is designed to address all of these desktop-side issues from a single tool! The MAP Toolkit is a platform of tools that combines the strength of agentless discovery and report generation capabilities from the previous generation (Windows Vista Hardware Assessment). The pie-chart below is part of an auto-generated readiness report from the MAP Toolkit and it illustrates the level of hardware readiness for Windows Vista upgrades across the desktop infrastructure.

As a matter of fact, if you view the latest MAP Team RTM blog post from yesterday, you will find that the MAP Toolkit 3.1 also havs many server-side and virtualization features including a Hyper-V virtualization candidates assessment and SQL Server discovery!!

Download Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 RTM Version
Read documentation about MAP operations on TechNet
Learn tips and see video demos on MAP Team Blog
Join MAP Fan Clubs on TechNet Forum or Facebook
Very importantly, download other Windows Vista Solution Accelerators like the MDT Toolkit, Windows Vista Security Guide and more as well!

Cheers!
Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators - Virtualization Lead)

Deployment gets easier with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008

Jeremy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:18:00 GMT

We've reached a pivotal moment in time, the release to Web of Windows Vista SP1 on Tuesday and, to complete the picture, today we released Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008, the latest generation of the Microsoft Solution Accelerators designed to simplify and ease your deployment experience.

There are a lot of things to consider when deploying a new OS and, if your organization has 50 desktops or more, MDT is designed to help you navigate the potentially complex desktop environment. Our goal is to save you lots of time and effort in planning and building out a standard desktop experience all the way to rolling OS images out into production.

Don't worry, this is not something unproven and new -- just fewer than 1 million of you across industries have been active users of MDT's predecessor, Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). Past customers include companies like Unilever, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and Fred Weber, who reduced their deployment costs from $300 to $35 per PC.

We have been listening to your feedback and augmenting the solution to ensure that the best of real world best practices are infused within the tool.

So what's changed with MDT?

In addition to the project, process and team guidance that has traditionally existed, the major thing that we worked on for this release is incremental guidance to progressively enable your deployment process. Examples include:

New checklist and wizard-driven user interface
Quick start guides that familiarize you quickly with the tools and deployment process

There are also more ways to automate deployment, including Zero Touch installation; new task sequencing for more flexible and simplified configuration; and new Lite Touch installation support for multicasting with Windows Deployment Services to help ease network load.

In fact, if you are planning to deploy Windows Server 2008 with Windows Vista concurrently, there are major advantages to using MDT. Check out Continental Airlines, who rolled out both Windows Server and Windows Vista. The ability to build images and deploy desktops and servers (including Windows Server 2008), was actually a key driver for our name change from BDD.

You can download MDT 2008 today. For more information, go to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=113979 or contact a Desktop Deployment Planning Services specialist. Also see the TechNet Springboard for the Five ways that Windows Vista deployment just got easier.

Oh and, still using BDD 2007? Don't worry, we didn't forget about you either. An update for BDD 2007 to support SP1 imaging and deployment is also available from here.

Microsoft Readying Customers with New Assessment and Deployment Tool for the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 Launch!

Baldwin Ng — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:43:00 GMT

Hello IT Pros!

February 27 is a big day. Windows Server 2008 will be officially launching in Los Angeles with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, kicking off in just a few hours.

In support of this very important technology milestone as well as the Windows Vista SP1 release, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team has just released the third-generation of the agent-less infrastructure assessment platform called Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator 3.0 (or simply MAP). Through the use of remote WMI calls and secure inventory engines, the MAP tool enables you to quickly inventory a wide variety of networks (AD-managed, IP ranges, and workgroups), securely assess IT environments of servers, desktops, applications and devices, and auto-generate specific and actionable reports and proposal documents in a matter of hours.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE BLOG POST...

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD MICROSOFT ASSESSMENT AND PLANNING (RTM BITS)

Thank you,

Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Assessment and Planning)

Springboard Series: Windows Vista Deployment & Adoption Roundtable

Nick White — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:38:00 GMT

[Update 7 March 12:28pm PST] in case you missed Mark at the live event, you can access the on-demand video by visiting http://ms.istreamplanet.com/events or via the Springboard Online site.

On Wednesday March 5th, Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich will be hosting a virtual roundtable session live over the Internet on Windows Vista Deployment and Adoption. Joining Mark on the panel for the roundtable will be independent industry experts and IT Professionals from organizations that have already deployed Windows Vista as well as Microsoft MVPs. This roundtable offers IT Professionals worldwide an opportunity to ask questions about deploying Windows Vista.

To attend the event, just visit http://ms.istreamplanet.com/events at 9:00am Pacific Time on March 5th. You will be able to ask your questions live during the event. You are also welcome to submit your questions in advance by sending them to vrtable@microsoft.com between now and when the event starts. The panel will be 60 minutes long and try to answer as many questions as possible within that timeframe. The event will also be available on-demand afterwards as well.

For additional guidance, resources, tools, and straight-talk articles to help address your Windows Vista adoption questions, visit the Springboard Series for Windows Vista.

Announcing Microsoft Assessment and Planning Beta Refresh for Windows Vista & Windows Server 2008

Baldwin Ng — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:12:00 GMT

Introducing Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.0

For those of you who are considering the migration of your desktop and server infrastructure to Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, we have good news for you!

As we've announced at TechEd IT Forum 2007 in Barcelona last November, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team is going to release the expanded version of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 called Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.0 (aka MAP).

In short, MAP is an automated agent-less network-wide inventory and assessment tool that can quickly determine if your organization's desktops and servers are ready for migration to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

What do I mean by AGENT-LESS inventory? Simply put, it means that you do not need to launch any software agents on any of those machines you want this tool to inventory and query - so no more security concerns and user interruption!

It offers quick network-wide inventory of machines and generate hardware and device compatibility reports with actionable recommendations in the form of auto-generated proposal documents - perfect documentation for your IT project planning in the new fiscal year!

The best part is that you can use this tool to inventory your environments ONCE and get multiple assessments and reports for not just server and desktop migration, but also various virtualization options from Microsoft (see our Virtualization Day Summit blog post here)!

How it Works?

Through the use of a sophisticated, agent-less and network-wide inventory engine, Microsoft Assessment and Planning will be able to discover machines on your network whether they are in workgroups or managed AD environments. By way of WMI, Win32, SNMP and other protocols, we can then securely collect hardware and device attributes of each machine and auto-generate migration readiness reports in Microsoft Word and Excel for the user.

What a great way to help you jump-start your planning process when you know your manager is waiting for your IT project plans for the New Year!

What's New with MAP 3.0?

Full incorporation of the features of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment including the generation of reports and proposals in 7 languages including N. American English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese
Windows Server 2008 migration hardware assessment
Windows server virtualization assessment (supports Virtual Server 2005 R2; will also add Hyper-V assessment in later this year)
Application virtualization infrastructure assessment for Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid)
New Graphical User Interface

Check it Out!

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Beta Refresh today, give us your feedback, and see how you may get a free copy of Windows Vista software and more!
Visit the MAP Team Blog to learn more or check out other great Solution Accelerators!
Subscribe to the Windows Vista Team Blog & MAP Team Blog RSS feeds to make sure you're the FIRST to know when MAP 3.0 will RTM (target date: February 27, 2008)
Sign up to join our weekly Live Meetings and chat directly with our development team
Download the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment - if you can't wait for MAP RTM version (RTM on Feb 27)

See you next time!

Baldwin Ng - Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Assessment and Planning + Virtualization Solution Accelerators

Microsoft Virtualization Day: Helping IT professionals do more with less

Nick White — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I'm relaying the following article on behalf of my colleague Shanen Boettcher, General Manager of Windows Product Management for the enterprise. It's the first in a series of posts from Shanen exploring what we're doing to make it simpler and easier to introduce and get the most out of virtualization of Windows in enterprise environments.

Today we're making a series of announcements outlining our company-wide strategy for virtualization from the desktop to the datacenter.

For all the hype and excitement in the industry, the primary scenario of using machine-level hardware virtualization to consolidate server machines has been used on less than 10% of hardware servers. While virtualization started in server consolidation, it is only a small piece of the value offered by virtualization. Nowadays virtualization is not a single technology; instead, it is a collection of technologies that can be applied to all aspects of the server and the desktop. Less than 1% of desktops take advantage of virtualization and yet machine virtualization, application virtualization, presentation virtualization and even profile virtualization are upcoming virtualization techniques that when applied can increase the flexibility, business continuity, security and agility of desktop deployments. Application virtualization -- the notion of reducing conflicts between applications running on a single copy of Windows -- is especially important for the desktop and interest in this technology is very high. Microsoft Application Virtualization (technology we acquired and improved from the application virtualization leader Softricity) became the fastest-ever selling enterprise product at Microsoft, with four million units sold in less than a year. Profile virtualization enables users to take advantage of separating their documents and profile information from Windows, making it easy to get working again on a new machine in case of a stolen or dropped laptop. Presentation virtualization provides the ability to work remotely. More and more virtualization vendors are moving toward creating a comprehensive set of technologies that interoperate and are managed consistently, and we are strongly focused on providing customers with these solutions.

We have a vision that focuses on businesses employing our virtualization toolset to more simply and cost-effectively manage their IT environments. We're calling that vision Dynamic IT. Dynamic IT is aiming to help IT professionals get more out of their computing resources across both server and desktop environments. One of the benefits of this initiative is to enable IT managers to dynamically make changes or add capacity to their deployments in a matter of minutes instead of hours (or even days). In a phrase, Dynamic IT is about efficiently getting the necessary resources to users and computers at any given moment and with a minimum of hassle and effort. We expect this vision to result in a whole new era of datacenter and desktop PC management, all hinging on virtualization technologies and Windows.

Central to the vision of Dynamic IT is the concept of the Optimized Desktop. The Optimized Desktop refers to virtualizing a user's applications and profile together so that they follow that user, regardless of the location of the PC in use at the moment. An example of this all-too-common scenario is a run-of-the-mill user happily working on their laptop in a taxi, but absent-mindedly leaving the taxi without the laptop. Fortunately, the laptop was BitLocker-encrypted, so the lost information was "safe" from prying eyes -- but for many users today it would have been lost data. However, that changes entirely with virtualization: taking advantage of application virtualization and profile virtualization, we provision a new laptop for the user, including installing their applications, resetting their desktop wallpaper and restoring their documents in only a few minutes and with no manual steps. It's pretty impressive and really how we expect people will be deploying Windows Vista to their mobile workforce. When presentation virtualization is used alongside the Optimized Desktop, it helps in allowing users remote access to individual LOB (line-of-business) applications running in the datacenter, and can even run whole Windows desktops virtually on the server (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, or VDI) for certain enterprise users.

The point of all this is that virtualization eliminates the need to "hard-wire" any single computing resource across the computing stack (operating system, applications, presentation, storage and network). By enabling virtualization across an entire enterprise deployment, we aim to help IT managers keep up with the changing needs of their individual business by speeding up deployment while reducing risk and cost.

With all the flexibility that virtualization brings, great management tools are essential to enable IT Pros to apply business rules and policies to each level of resources and data. The most successful vendors will provide the full stack of virtualization capabilities, coupled with management tools that can span both the physical and logical datacenter. Because companies will not convert their whole datacenter to virtual over night, they benefit greatly from management tools that work the same across both environments, helping consistently manage both virtual and physical resources from a single management suite. This is where we believe Microsoft has the best and most complete offering with System Center 2007.

Per today's announcement, we are now offering a comprehensive set of products and technologies to enable virtualization at all layers of the computing stack, from datacenter to desktop to management:

Hyper-V (Beta), the brand-new hypervisor architected on top of hardware virtualization technologies from AMD and Intel that is an exciting new feature of Windows Server 2008
Microsoft Application Virtualization (aka Softgrid) for running specific applications in a virtualized environment
Folder Redirection and Offline Files for user profile virtualization in scenarios such as hot-desking or PC replacement
Virtual PC 2007 for creating and managing virtual desktops
Terminal Services for presentation virtualization

In addition, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop allows for an entire desktop to be hosted on a server and remotely delivered to a desktop device.

With all that said, virtualization itself is not a panacea. It is a great enabling technology, but alone does not translate to business value. Virtualization will require broad platform support, integration with other products, mapping virtualization to specific needs of a given company, and implementation best practices and guidance in order to help customers make the most of virtualization in their businesses. MS as an entire organization is strongly committed to making it very easy for our customers to deploy, manage and use virtualization throughout their entire environment, from the datacenter and network to the desktop PC and application stack. In addition to redefining virtualization within the IT environment, we've also undertaken a number of initiatives designed to make it easier still to integrate virtualization as an IT professional:

We've acquired Calista Technologies, whose technology in combination with our virtualization portfolio will enable people to watch video, listen to audio and enable remote workers to receive a full-fidelity Windows desktop experience without the need for high-end desktop hardware
We are partnering with Citrix to develop a desktop connection broker, which will create the ability to further optimize the desktop experience. Our joint offering will be based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimized Desktop solutions, extended with Citrix’s XenDesktop and Presentation Server products, and managed by System Center
With Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, we're simplifying the license for Centralized Desktop to help ease virtualization of hosted desktops
By modifying virtualization in Windows Vista Home Basic, we are extending virtualization rights to allow virtualization throughout all versions of Windows Vista
Regarding application virtualization of Microsoft Office: we're providing new and clear guidance on support of Microsoft Office when virtualized with Microsoft Application Virtualization
To help customers evaluate, plan, secure and deploy Microsoft virtualization technologies across desktops and datacenters, we've introduced four new Solution Accelerators that will be available at the Windows Server 2008 launch in February. This is a set of free guidance resources and tools to help customers effectively plan and deploy virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Microsoft Application Virtualization

Our virtualization toolset continues to be used by IT professionals to realize the tangible benefits and quick returns on investment at the core of the Dynamic IT initiative. Are you doing all that you can to maximize your IT investments by enabling virtualization in your computing environment? Check out our tools listed above to find out more, or go here to learn more about virtualization in Windows in general.

This is only the first of a series of posts on virtualization in Windows and the concerted efforts around it occurring throughout MS. Expect to hear more from me about virtualization in Windows Vista in the very near future.

-- Shanen

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Getting A Major Facelift: Tool Expansion Announced at IT Forum 2007

Baldwin Ng — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:37:00 GMT

Hi all! It's been a little bit over 2 months since my last blog on the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 (WVHA) release back in August. You may wonder what our dev team is up to. Well, aside from getting the much needed rest, we have been busy working on the NEXT version of the tool. Yes, we're talking about a major expansion here. For those of you who haven't heard of WVHA, it's basically a network-wide readiness assessment tool that goes out to your network and securely assess each PC for their hardware and device compatibility for Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office migration - click here for my detailed blog post.

Tool Expansion - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator

This expansion will not only retain the original WVHA functionalities and the 7-language localization, but it will also incorporate many elements for the Windows Server 2008 wave and Microsoft Integrated Virtualization initiative. Imagine having the same agent-less inventory capabilities to survey the IT infrastructure of servers, applications and workstations and get back a series of assessment reports in an hour or two!

Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Solution Accelerator, the new name announced at IT Forum 2007 this week, will be the next-generation WVHA where we will add new assessment scenarios for Windows Server 2008 migration, server virtualization via Hyper-V, application virtualization recommendations using Microsoft Application Virtualization (SoftGrid) and more.

Come join our MAP Beta Program today and give us your feedback on the new product/technology scenarios!

http://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=297

Cheers and stay tuned for more...

Baldwin (mapsbeta@MICROSOFT.COM)

TechEd IT Forum Europe, Day 1: Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

Nick White — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:00:00 GMT

To jump start TechEd IT Forum in Barcelona, Spain, this week, I'd like to highlight some announcements that IT professionals are really going to appreciate. We're updating the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) to further assist IT professionals in complex enterprise environments in their desktop manageability pursuits. Our improvements to MDOP should help IT pros save the companies money by further driving down total cost of desktop ownership.

First off, we're today announcing the public beta availability of Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, an integral component of MDOP. Formerly known as Microsoft "SoftGrid Application Virtualization" and now with the 4.5 release moniker "Microsoft Application Virtualization," this package transforms applications into virtualized, network-available services. IT professionals will be able to use Microsoft Application Virtualization to deliver localized applications within localized environments. Microsoft Application Virtualization supports product localization across 11 languages and has support for internet-facing scenarios as well. It's now available via Microsoft Connect as a public beta and will become generally available in Summer 2008. For more information on what's new in Microsoft Application Virtualization version 4.5, please browse to the Microsoft Application Virtualization site.

Creating a software inventory of an entire IT environment can be quite a task and with the Microsoft Asset Inventory Service, IT professionals have a new tool to help them complete that task. MDOP customers can now download the Microsoft Asset Inventory Service 1.0 (AIS) by following instructions at the Volume Licensing site.

And finally, we're adding Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit, as well as Windows Server 2008, support to the Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT). DaRT 6.0 will enable IT staff offline removal of malware and viruses from infected PCs. On top of that, DaRT 6.0 now can unlock BitLocker volume encryption and allow IT professionals to use DaRT functionality on a BitLocker-encrypted drive. DaRT 6.0 is available via private beta currently and will be made more broadly available in Spring 2008. DaRT 5.0 is available today for download by MDOP customers.

Stay tuned, as this is just the beginning from TechEd IT Forum in Barcelona. I'll bring you coverage of further developments throughout the week...

Just Released: Deployment 4 Beta 3 - The Next Generation of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007

Jeremy — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:49:00 GMT

Deployment insiders probably saw this coming, but the recent Beta release of Deployment 4 is a huge step in unifying the converging tools and procedures to image and automate installation of both desktops and now servers in a single console. For current BDD 2007 users, this means with very little extra effort you are ready to create images and deploy Windows Server 2003 and pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008 using the Deployment Workbench. Deployment 4 also integrates with the new System Center Configuration Manager 2007 features for OS deployment and task sequencing. Speaking of task sequences, the Deployment 4 has shifted focus from builds to task sequences, making deployments more flexible and aligning to the way System Center Configuration Manager 2007 performs OS deployment. And as if that wasn't enough, Deployment 4 leverages the new multicasting functionality coming in Windows Server 2008 Windows Deployment Services. Multicasting dramatically reduces network bandwidth by instead of passing a 4 GB image individually to each targeted computer, it can pass that same 4 GB image to multiple computers simultaneously.

Deployment 4 Beta 3 combines the guidance and toolset from previous releases of Business Desktop Deployment and Beta releases of Windows Server Deployment. This release continues to support Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) of desktop operating systems using Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 with the Operating System Deployment Feature Pack and adds new deployment and task sequencing capabilities for desktops and servers using System Center Configuration Manager 2007. Deployment 4 also continues to provide Lite Touch Installation (LTI) support without infrastructure requirements and adds capabilities for Windows Server 2003 and pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008.

New Features in Deployment 4 Beta 3

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 support, with the following features:

· Full support for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 deployments with Deployment 4 and Configuration Manager 2007.

· Complete integration into the Configuration Manager 2007 admin console and task sequencing capabilities.

o Quick start Configuration Manager 2007 operating system deployments using one wizard to create needed task sequences and packages.

o Extends the Configuration Manager 2007 task sequencing capabilities with new actions.

· Feature parity with BDD 2007 and SMS 2003, including dynamic package installation, automatic determination of state store location, computer backup, database settings.

Lite Touch Installation (LTI) support for Windows Server 2008:

· Support for deploying Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 and potentially RC0 (to be verified after RC0 release), including support for Server Core installation options. (Windows Server 2008 TAP customers only.)

Lite Touch Installation (LTI) enhancements:

· Enhanced disk and network interface cards (NICs) configuration options, including support for static TCP/IP configuration.

· Design changes to ease the migration from LTI to Configuration Manager 2007.

· Support for multiple task sequence templates. New sample templates include:

o Client template: Windows Vista, Windows XP

o Server template: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008

o Replace scenario template

· Ability to invoke web service calls

o Support for web service calls from rules

o Web services can be invoked as part of the rules processing performed by Deployment 4, using new rules that can be defined in CustomSettings.ini.

· Support for side-by-side installation with Deployment 4 and BDD 2007 installed on the same machine.

Lite Touch Installation (LTI) multicast support:

· Deployment Workbench supports multicast transmission of operating system images when performing LTI deployments from Windows Server 2008 servers that are running Windows Deployment Services.

Enhanced Beta Program on Microsoft Connect

This Beta release also offers an enhanced Microsoft Connect portal including technical frequently asked questions, deployment tips and tricks, a recommended 10-step program for new users to quickly get acquainted with deployment accelerators, customer-ready Solution Accelerator informational materials, and deployment-related conference presentations.

Where to find Deployment Beta 3

To join the Deployment 4 Beta 3 program, follow these steps:

1) Visit the Microsoft Connect Web site (http://connect.microsoft.com).

2) Click Invitations on the Connect menu.

3) Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page.

4) Enter your Invitation ID in the box. Your invitation ID is: D4B3-RFC6-99CW

5) Click Go.

If you have not previously registered with Microsoft Connect, you might be required to register before you continue with the invitation process.

Give us your feedback!

Our mission is to make typically complex deployment projects as easy as possible. Based on customer feedback we have released things like the 19-page Quickstart Guide for BDD 2007 and provided the current enhanced Microsoft Deployment Connection Beta site to catalog and highlight technical implementation content. We have also provided informational content in the Beta program for those new to deployment accelerators. We are always refining what we deliver and how we deliver content based on your feedback.

Jeremy

Solution Accelerators Team

New study highlights cost savings afforded by deploying Windows Vista

Nick White — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 15:45:00 GMT

Those of you involved in deploying Windows Vista to enterprises may be interested to learn of today’s publication of a study completed by Wipro and GCR Custom Research and commissioned by MS, wherein it's demonstrated that running Windows Vista on mobile PCs delivers significant savings to organizations over running Windows XP. The reduction in TCO (total cost of ownership) amounted to $605 per mobile PC per year, or a 14% improvement on Windows XP. These savings were realized by employing such Windows Vista innovations as BitLocker Drive Encryption to enhance security, Network Diagnostics for improved troubleshooting, and integrated search functionality to boost productivity. For further details, visit the GCR website.

Organizations may be interested in combining this new mobility TCO whitepaper with the how-to guide titled How to Effectively Manage Your Organization's Mobile PCs.

The study also noted that Windows Vista-deploying organizations were able to lower the risk in complying with regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Specific innovations in Windows Vista contributing to these gains were the risk reduction offered by BitLocker, increased control afforded via User Account Control and group policies, and the ability to reduce compliance testing costs through Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) Applications Virtualization.

How to Download the Localized Version of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1?

Baldwin Ng — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:53:00 GMT

Hello Windows Vista Team Blog readers,

We've heard that some of you are very interested in getting the localized version of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 but was not sure how the download process works for this globalized integrated download. To clarify, the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 is available in any of the SEVEN languages from a single download (not just English). That includes North American English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. No more hunting around for 2 different localized versions of the download. This is especially convenient for those of you who are multi-lingual in US, Europe and Latin America!!

Here's how the download and installation process work:

Download the globalized integrated version of the tool here (please ignore the fact the language field says English, trust me, it has all 7 localizations in it :-) ): http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83115
Decide on which language you want the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment to operate in (e.g. Japanese)
Install this globalized integrated download on a computer with the matching localized operating system (i.e. Japanese version of the 32-bit Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003 R2 OS)
Double-click the download and complete the installation process
When you are ready to use Windows Vista Hardware Assessment in Japanese, make sure that your DISPLAY LANGUAGE is set in Japanese in this case
(Optional Step) If you want to switch to a different language and, for example, create readiness assessment report in English, you may change the display language from Japanese to English and then re-launch Windows Vista Hardware Assessment.

To read more about the details of this tool, visit the localized sites here:

Don't forget to check out the various blog posts and web pages on many of the Windows Vista Solution Accelerators we've produced in the past few months! My colleague Jeremy Chapman just wrote about the Windows Vista Service Life-cycle Management solution accelerator - you definitely should check it out!

Thank you and enjoy!

Baldwin (Baldwin.Ng@microsoft.com)

Get Microsoft Solution Accelerators: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators

Guidance and Tools to Help Manage a Windows Vista Desktop Service

Jeremy — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:45:00 GMT

Hi,

I'm Jeremy Chapman and I try to make the lives of IT staff and management easier by creating free Solution Accelerator tools and guidance for challenging IT projects and services. We’ve just released the another piece in a great lineup of Solution Accelerator offerings for Windows Vista, the Windows Vista Service Life-Cycle Management guide. It is designed to help reduce costs, simplify service planning and implementation, and improve overall manageability of desktop service and support. This is the newest addition to our Windows Vista accelerators, including the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, Windows Vista Security Guide and the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs.

In my consulting days before joining Microsoft, I used to help companies achieve International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certifications and what I always preferred was seeing actual service and management recommendations and sample deliverables required to achieve the certification, as opposed to a list of requirements. This guide is great because it makes all the concepts you read about in the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF), IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and ISO real for your daily operations. Instead of just describing theories about how things ought to be run, it gives you implementer guidance according to roles in the IT department and gives you samples to use (see below) like an editable service map, daily/weekly/monthly activity logs, a service level agreement and partner underpinning contracts. Granted, this guide is written with larger organizations in mind, but if your company is looking to map out its services – even beyond the desktop service – or to start standardizing operations, this guide is short enough for IT departments of all sizes to get a lot of value and the sample docs can be modified or personalized easily to fit your needs.

Service map:

Service level agreement:

Operations calendar:

You can start to adopt the recommendations and customize the samples in no time and give your organizations the benefits of best practices to help further reduce the TCO of Windows Vista environments. Read this guide on Microsoft TechNet or download it for the extra samples and document templates on the Microsoft Download Center.

Windows Vista Service Life-Cycle Management rounds out our Solution Accelerator content for Windows Vista. Now whether you are evaluating required hardware upgrades, planning and executing large scale deployment projects or standardizing new user provisioning, determining security and configuration policies or developing a service strategy for ongoing management of Windows Vista desktop infrastructures, we have content and tools to help. Check out the Solution Accelerators website for more details.

-Jeremy

New Application Compatibility training available

Peg McNicol — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:19:00 GMT

When we talk about application compatibility for our large customers, it goes beyond making sure the latest game or end user application works. Our enterprise customers sometimes have hundreds of thousands of PCs to manage. That means a lot of different applications, from many different companies, some custom and some customized. To help these customers we created a suite of enterprise tools called the Application Compatibility Toolkit (see my earlier post), and also worked with partners to create a service called the Application Compatibility Factory (see here).

One thing you may not know is that we also have a team of specially trained consultants who work with customers on some of these very large deployments. We try to make sure all our customers can take advantage of the team's knowledge, so we send them to events like TechEd or IT Forum and they contribute significantly to the content you find on TechNet and MSDN. Unfortunately it's not always possible for customers to have one-on-one interaction with this team. That's why we are pretty excited that one of the consultants, Caio Chaves Garcez, recently recorded the full 2 day training the team usually presents to these large customers. The training covers most common application compatibility issues found with Windows Vista, as well as how to use the various tools we make available. Whether you are an IT Pro starting your deployment or a developer trying to make your older applications work with Vista, the content of this webcast is well worth the just over 8 hours it will take you to get through it. If you want to learn more about what the team is working on, you can also check out Chris Jackson's blog.

Download the training

Meet Windows Vista IT Pro Hero - Sumeeth Evans from Indianapolis

Baldwin Ng — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:10:00 GMT

Hi all,

Whether you are seriously considering moving your desktops to Windows Vista or just simply contemplating about it, I highly encourage you to grab your favorite latte or beverage, sit back and read about this great story – one that illustrates how an IT pro had become an instant hero in this company.

Meet Sumeeth Evans - IT Manager of the Collegiate Housing Services (CHS). Situated just about 2 hours south of the Great Lake Michigan, CHS manages student housing programs for 27 post-secondary campuses in 13 states across the nation. Late last year (2006), Sumeeth started planning for migrating his company’s computers to Windows Vista but estimated that it could cost $76,000 to get the job done – he assumed that most of his Windows XP machines might not support Windows Vista due the hardware requirements. Fortunately, he joined the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment beta program and found out after using this assessment tool that 70% of his 3-year-old Windows XP machines could run Windows Vista with no or only minor upgrades! Yes, that’s the majority of his PCs!

Needless to say, his manager was pleasantly surprised with the readiness results and the huge savings in the hardware replacement costs that Sumeeth virtually became the IT HERO of the company!

Wanna be an IT hero too? Read on and find out how he did it:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93644

To become an IT HERO yourself, download Windows Vista Hardware Assessment for free and get the tool here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83115

Cheers,

Baldwin Ng

Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators

Hello World! Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 is Going Global!

Baldwin Ng — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:48:00 GMT

The wait is over! The Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team is pleased to announce the newly-released Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 with many of the features YOU have been looking for. For example, we've added features such as localization to 6 more languages in addition to North American English, IP range scanning and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) detection of non-Windows machines and network devices. These are excellent features to help you speed up your migration projects to Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office!

For the newcomers of the Windows Vista Team Blog, let me give you a brief overview and show you what Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution accelerator can do for you. Of course, if you can't wait, just click HERE to download the tool. That's okay too. :-)

In a nutshell, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is an automated software tool that helps business customers and consultants make informed decisions about desktop deployment and migration to Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office. Specifically, this tool provides users a very quick way to inventory and assess PCs network-wide for their hardware and device readiness (within an hour if you have a network of about 500-1000 PCs). Through auto-generated readiness reports, organizations can more quickly identify computers that can migrate to Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office "as is" without any hardware upgrades and other computers that could be migrated with very minimum hardware upgrades such as system memory and hard drive upgrades. This tool is now used by many large and small enterprises and it can scan 25,000 PCs in a single scan per domain/workgroup and can run multiple scans for a larger organization as well.

FIGURE 1: Screenshot of the Welcome Screen - French Version of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment

FIGURE 2: Screenshot of the Japanese Windows Vista Readiness Report

In this new release of version 2.1, we have added 3 major features that address many of the customer and partner feedback that we've collected for the past months:

Localization to 6 New Languages: With Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office going to all corners of the world, we've decided to globalize the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment tool. Now, you can not only operate this tool with your OS but you can also generate readiness report in Microsoft Word and Excel in your local languages including French, German, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. This makes this tool and the reports more impactful when presented to the technical and business decision makers.
IP Range Scanning: This feature is one of the most frequently requested features from our customers (you!) and this IP range scanning capability allows you to select a set of computers for the readiness assessment independent of whether you are using Active Directory or not - especially useful in many branch office assessment scenarios! This nicely complements other ways to target machines for assessment including the Active Directory Organizational-Unit targeting and flat-file import method.
SNMP Discovery: While many of your computers are Windows-based, we do know that our customers and partners would like to assess the ENTIRE network environment. So with this new SNMP discovery feature, you will now have the ability to discover and assess machines running non-Windows OS that are SNMP-enabled. It also paves a way for you to understand the network devices as well. Very cool feature in my opinion!

For more details, please view the content on TechNet or check out my previous blog in July.

Most importantly, over 240,000 users have downloaded this tool since February 2007. Many customers have already saved significant of migration costs and accelerated their migration using this tool - such as Sporton International and Collegiate Housing Services.

So why wait? Download Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 Now!

To read the TechNet overview in the 6 new languages, please click one of the links below:

TechNet France
TechNet Germany
TechNet Japan (available in the next 24 hours)
TechNet Korea
TechNet Latin America (Spanish)
TechNet Brasil

Have a great weekend everyone!

Baldwin Ng

Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators

wvhafdbk@microsoft.com