Windows Vista Team Blog : Windows Vista, Help & Support

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

Announcing the Windows Vista Resource Kit

Alex Heaton — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 18:18:00 GMT

For some IT pros, the only thing they look forward to more than the new version of Windows is the new Windows Resource Kit-and the Windows Vista Resource Kit is available now. This official Microsoft reference provides more than 1,500 pages of in-depth technical guidance on deploying; securing, and managing Windows Vista.

The primary authors of this book are Microsoft MVP's Mitch Tulloch, Tony Northrup, and Jerry Honeycutt-though hundreds of folks on the Windows Vista Team contributed to and reviewed it. (I even reviewed a page or two.)

What's in the Windows Vista Resource Kit?

Like most of the resource kits that have gone before, the Windows Vista Resource Kit includes a collection of tools, utilities, guidance, and information in one package. Parts of the kit will be available online, but the complete collection is available for $59.99 US. (That's the list price. You can get it for much less from book sellers.)

Here are a few of the topics that are covered in the Windows Vista Resource Kit:

Deployment
From installation basics to corporate-level installation guidance for the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the Windows Vista Resource Kit covers all areas of Windows Vista deployment including:

Deployment automation
Application compatibility and deployment
Disk imaging
User state migration
Volume activation

Management
Controlling how Windows Vista functions and how users access its resources is an important part of supporting the operating system. The Windows Vista Resource Kit covers management topics such as:

User accounts
Disks and storage
Device management
Printing
File sharing and collaboration
Internet access and security

Maintenance
The ability to restore a system to efficient operation is an important part of a technician's job. The Windows Vista Resource Kit offers guidance for maintenance tasks including:

Health and performance monitoring
Remote user assistance
Software updates and patches
Client protection (hardening Windows)

Networking
Windows Vista is designed to operate in networks from two linked home systems to immense corporate networks with thousands of networked computers. The Windows Vista Resource Kit has everything you need to know about the following topics:

Configuring Windows networking
Configuring Windows Firewall with Advanced Security
Connecting to remote networks
Deploying the next generation Internet-TCP/IP version 6 (IPv6)

Troubleshooting
Windows Vista is designed to be the most resilient operating system we've ever released. In spite of this, problems do sometimes happen. When they do, the Windows Vista Resource Kit has information on the following topics:

Startup issues
Hardware issues
Network issues
Stop errors

Tools and Utilities
In addition to the guidance listed above, the Windows Vista Resource Kit includes a CD of tools and utilities to help you troubleshoot, manage, and configure Windows Vista. Among these tools are more than 150 timesaving scripts to help automate administrative tasks, additional job aids, and an eBook of the entire resource kit.

If you've read this far then I know you're really interested, so we have a special surprise for you. The first 25 folks who send mail to <deleted> at microsoft.com with their mailing address will get a free copy of the Windows Vista Resource Kit shipped to them. (Your information will only be used to ship this book and will be deleted after that.)

(Thanks to everybody that wrote in. The 25 books are all taken now.)

Keep reading for more IT pros posts and giveaways.

- Alex

Announcing (English only) support for CPP participants

Nick White — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 19:58:00 GMT

We're pleased to announce the addition of best-effort phone support (in English only) to North America CPP participants of the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP) using English-language versions of early test builds of Windows Vista (Beta 2, RC1 or RC2).

This is another step in our process of ramping up preparations for the 30th January general availability of Windows Vista. We'll of course begin offering product phone support to the general public on the first day of Windows Vista's availability.

Details on accessing this phone support:

Phone Number: 866-425-0593
Hours of Availability:

Monday – Friday: 5AM-9PM Pacific Time
Saturday – Sunday: 6AM-3PM Pacific Time

English only (US & Canada)
Best-effort troubleshooting in a consumer, non-domain environment

For all CPP participants, the newsgroups remain the most valuable channel for finding helpful information on general issues related to Windows Vista.

Volume License customers looking for Windows Vista Enterprise- or Professional-level support today should visit the Microsoft Windows Vista Solutions Center and the Windows Vista Help & Support page.