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Jan

26

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

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

Jan

25

(PRODUCT) RED at Microsoft

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Today here at Microsoft’s Redmond campus there is quite a bit of (PRODUCT) RED presence in the air, helping spread the word of the efforts to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

We had banners hanging from buildings across campus as well as pole banners around light posts on the roads and in parking lots.

In Microsoft cafés across campus, (PRODUCT) RED table tents took to the tables.

Here are some close-up shots of those table tents:

As we announced earlier this week, proceeds from each purchase of a Dell (PRODUCT) RED PC running Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED go to the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

Jan

24

Taking a peek at Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED running on Dell PCs

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Last week in Redmond I had the pleasure of taking a look the PCs from Dell running Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED. The line-up includes the Dell XPS M1330 and M1530 laptops, the Dell XPS One, and Dell’s 948 All-in-One printer. And all of them of course in red! Using Windows Live Photo Gallery, I’ve uploaded some shots I took of the (PRODUCT) RED line-up to Flickr to share with everyone - enjoy.