Microsoft Prepares Another Vista Migration Tool

by admin October 21, 2006 at 3:26 am

Microsoft announced plans to release a set of new desktop tools that will augment and improve Active Desktop in helping IT managers get their arms around their application assets.

The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance will ship in January and consists of four tools. The first is Asset Inventory Services, which scans and discovers all applications on employee PCs to provide an accurate software inventory.

Second is Advanced Group Policy Management increases control over Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and allows administrators to assign control of specific tasks based on an employee’s titles or roles.

The Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset is an update to Dr. Watson, making it possible to quickly pinpoint the causes of PC troubles, recover lost data and prevent future downtime with post-crash analysis.

Finally, the SoftGrid “virtualizes” applications so they can be run off a server as individual networked services, enabling central deployment and management.

Gavriella Schuster, senior director of the Windows client product marketing group at Microsoft, said the inventory and advanced group policy tools will provide for finer grain control over applications and make migrating to Vista easier.

Full article: internetnews.com