I'm relaying the following article on behalf of my colleague Shanen Boettcher, General Manager of Windows Product Management for the enterprise.  During Virtualization Briefing Day in January, Shanen posted to give you background on what we're doing to make it simpler and easier to introduce and get the most out of virtualization of Windows in enterprise environments. He's back again today with an update on virtualization, as well as other components that illustrate our commitment to improving the optimized desktop.

This week at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas, we've talked about Microsoft's role in improving the optimized desktop and emphasized Microsoft's commitment to virtualization. I want to tell you about some news coming out of the show today, which includes details on the product roadmaps for specific tools within the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) for Software Assurance.

The combination of MDOP and Windows Vista gives customers the tools they need to support more flexible work environments for their users, while making it easier and more efficient to manage and maintain their networks. This is the concept we refer to as the optimized desktop, and many of our customers have the tools to

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Today marks the release of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2008 - a set of tools for IT Pros managing IT environments for companies who have purchased MDOP plus Windows Software Assurance agreements with Microsoft. There are two key product updates in this release I'd like to highlight that I think IT Pros will find very useful  - Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset 6.0 (DaRT) and Desktop Error Monitoring 3.0 SP1 (DEM).

For those of you not familiar with DaRT, it provides a set of tools for IT Pros to debug and troubleshoot unbootable PCs.  DaRT 6.0 brings in some new tools worth taking note of. Tools such as Locksmith can reset a local administrator password, while Hotfix Uninstall can remove a bad hotfix.  This is especially useful if the hotfix was the cause of the PC crash.  Perhaps one of the simplest uses for DaRT is to recover files from the PC, even if they have been removed from the recycle bin.  One of the new features in DaRT 6.0 is the Standalone System Sweeper, an antimalware product that runs while the Windows operating system is unbootable.  This tool, which can receive updated virus/spyware

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Today, Nick told you about some updates to the tools in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) from Barcelona, Spain at TechEd IT Forum. I recently had a chance to give one of the components of MDOP - the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) 6.0 - a try. DaRT is an excellent set of tools for IT Professionals to troubleshoot unresponsive PCs and removing viruses and malware off infected PCs in their environment. DaRT 6.0  also now has the ability for IT Professionals to conduct offline removal of malware and viruses from infected PCs.

The first thing I noticed when I started using DaRT is that it provides two options to the IT Professional: a way to analyze crash files from unresponsive PCs through the Crash Analysis Wizard, and a way to create a startup disc with the necessary tools in fixing an unresponsive PC that is unable to boot into Windows called ERD Commander.

I first took a look at the Crash Analysis Wizard.

The Crash Analysis Wizard allows an IT Professional to take a crash dump file (*.dmp files associated with a system crash) and analyze it and get important bits of information that could

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Today, Nick told you about some updates to the tools in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) from Barcelona, Spain at TechEd IT Forum. I recently had a chance to give one of the components of MDOP - the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset Read More……(read more)