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)

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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

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 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

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