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

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 Read More……(read more)

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

< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />Hi Folks,

Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office are here!  And, you are probably thinking that it’s time to take advantage of these 2 great technologies.  But, you need to get answers on a few practical questions first:

• Would my existing PCs run Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office? Should I buy new ones or upgrade them instead?
• Would my devices still work? Would most of the device drivers be available from Windows Vista installation DVD and/or Microsoft Windows Update site?

Well, I have good news for you!  Today, our team is happy to announce the availability of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 tool at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007.  This network-wide readiness assessment tool is designed to make it easier for Microsoft partners and customers to determine their existing PCs’ readiness for Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office.  It’s a great tool to accelerate migration and deployment planning for Microsoft customers and partners.

How it Works?

• Step 1 - Network Inventory:

• Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 connects securely and remotely from a networked PC and reaches out to each PC on the network, whether they are in an Active Directory domain/forest or in a peer-to-peer/workgroup environment.
• Hardware and device data were collected through the WMI protocol (Windows Management Instrumentation) and other Windows networking protocols all without deploying any software agents on the individual PCs.

• By analyzing the hardware and device data from each computer, Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 can assess your existing computers’ hardware compatibility and device compatibility for Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office. It also offers hardware upgrade recommendations if required for each PC.

• Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 offers the auto-generation of 2 readiness assessment reports: a summary report in Microsoft Word and a detailed spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.
• The Summary Report provides business decision makers with a high-level view of percentage of existing computers that can run Windows Vista and how many more computers can take advantage of Windows Vista with minor level of memory, hard drive and other upgrades.
• The Detailed Spreadsheet Report provides technical decision makers with a detailed view of the information they need to plan for a desktop deployment/migration.

What’s New with Version 2.0?

Backed by popular demand, we have added many features in this release:

• Enterprise-Scale Scanning - Scan up to 25,000 computers per domain/workgroup in every scan (Note: multiple scans are possible for larger networks)
• Office 2007 Hardware Assessment - Assess PCs for hardware compatibility with 2007 Microsoft Office
• Customized Inventory using Active Directory - Choose computers of specific organizational units (or OU’s) within an Active Directory domain/forest where the inventory would be conducted
• Customized Inventory using Flat-File Import - Target a specific set of computers for the inventory and assessment by importing a specific flat file of computers (such as computer host names, NetBIOS names, or Fully Qualified Domain Names - FQDN)

What is the IT community saying about Windows Vista Hardware Assessment?  Visit these blogs to find out more.

• Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing
• John Obeto on Microsoft (Network World)
• Josh’s Windows Connected Blog

Where Should I Start?

• Download the tool today and see how it can benefit your Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office migration planning
• Sign up for one of my July webcasts on TechNet and Partner Readiness web sites
• Look for the 6-language localized version that will go live in the coming weeks that will enable you to create readiness assessment reports in your own language including French, German, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese
• Tell your success story using the tool and email us at: wvha-tap@microsoft.com
• Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay tuned for my future blog posts where I will share with you our customers’ success stories and what’s new at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007
• Check out the Windows Vista Business Value Assessment Tool if you are a Microsoft Partner - you’ll be amazed how powerful this ROI tool is!  (IT Blogger, James Senior, gives you the inside scoop HERE!)
• Visit the Solution Accelerators home page to download other great Windows Vista tools including Windows Vista Security Guide, Data Encryption Toolkit and Business Desktop Deployment 2007

See you next time…

Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators)

wvhafdbk@microsoft.com