Attention everyone!!! 

A great webcast series starts tomorrow! 

Join the Microsoft Windows Vista Deployment team of experts as they provide IT Pros and Partners with the necessary tools and understanding to migrate existing Windows Applications to the Windows Vista Operating System. This webcast series will guide participants through a series of presentations and demos designed to empower them with the knowledge and tools necessary to evaluate, test and mitigate applications for compatibility on Windows Vista.

Although most applications developed for Windows XP SP2 will probably work well on Windows Vista, application compatibility breaks are inevitable due to new innovations, security tightening, and increased reliability. In this training, attendees will learn about the most common compatibility problems and will be given tools to help facilitate application compatibility testing, debugging, and mitigation for the highest quality Windows Vista experience.

The speakers in this are the best-of-the-best and have been on the front lines deploying Vista for the past 18 months. Attendees will experience high level content loaded with in-depth technical information.

You won’t want to miss this series! If you can’t make the “live” presentation an on-demand version of the webcast is available on the very next day after the live broadcast.

• Making Windows Vista Application Compatibility Testing More Predictable with Effective Project Management
  Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
  Speaker: Chris Jackson, Technical Lead, Windows Application Experience SWAT Team
  Level: 300
  Length: 75 minutes
  Attendee Registration URL
  Session Description: When helping our customers accelerate their Windows Vista deployments by assisting with application compatibility, there are a number of technical skills to master. However, technical acumen is never enough - effectively managing the project is critical to making the process predictable and measurable, as well as controlling costs and maximizing effectiveness. In this session, we review best practices we have learned for effectively managing this process from enterprise customers world-wide.
  
• Application Compatibility Toolkit
  Date: Thursday, April 17, 2008
  Speaker: Matt Baddeley, Senior Program Manager, Windows Application Experience
  Level: 300
  Length: 1 Hour
  Attendee Registration URL
  Session Description: Provides an introduction to the major sources of application compatibility problems in Windows Vista, and shows how the Application Compatibility Toolkit can be used by enterprise customers to migrate their applications to the new OS. This session covers the phases of the application migration process and includes a demonstration of the ACT tools and features. Beyond migrating to a new OS, ACT also helps enterprises assess the impact of Windows Updates.
  
• Mitigating Application Issues Using Shims
  Date: Thursday, April 24, 2008
  Speaker: Chris Jackson, Technical Lead, Windows Application Experience SWAT Team
  Level: 400
  Length: 75 Minutes
  Attendee Registration URL
  Session Description: Explore many of the compatibility issues that the Windows team has experienced at customer sites in the context of what we can fix without updating the application, and how to fix it. The Windows Application Compatibility Infrastructure (Shim Infrastructure) is a powerful tool for resolving compatibility issues and unblocking Windows Vista deployments, but understanding where and how to leverage and configure shims can be daunting until you learn some of the tricks and subtleties, many of which we will be exposing!
  
• LUA Buglight
  Date: Thursday, May 1, 2008
  Speaker: Aaron Margosis, Senior Consultant, Microsoft Consulting Services
  Level: 400
  Length: 75 Minutes
  Attendee Registration URL
  Session Description: UA Buglight™ (version 2.0 currently in the works) is a tool designed to help both developers and IT Pros (sysadmins) identify the specific causes of "LUA bugs" (admin-rights-required to work correctly) in desktop applications running on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. Once the specific causes have been identified, the bugs can more easily be resolved by fixing the app's source code, or by making configuration changes, allowing the app to work correctly for non-admin users.

• Application Compatibility in 50 Days
  Date: Thursday, May 8, 2008
  Speaker: Steve Campbell, Deployment Segment Architect Lead, Microsoft
  Level: 300-400
  Length: 60 Minutes
  Attendee Registration URL
  Session Description:  Deploying Windows Vista in the Enterprise has moved from “We’ll see…” to “Let’s get it done” and application compatibility is typically identified as the biggest blocker to a successful, low-cost migration. In this session we’ll identify the tools, technologies and best practices that have been used successfully by Microsoft Services and partners to minimize and/or eliminate many of the perceived (and real) challenges customers experience with both ISV and internally developed applications running on Windows Vista.