Do you know your WIM from your BDD?

Deployment is something both James and I have been chatting about lots recently, and with good reason. According to the latest market analysis and forecasts from Gartner Group, and others, the worldwide PC market will see a significant migration to Vista over the next 12-36 months.  Driving deeper adoption and deployment of the latest OS is obviously a key business priority for Microsoft yet it will also create significant business opportunities for Microsoft Partners.

Now, there are a tonne of resources out there around deployment of Vista - but do you know about them?  Do you know your WIM from your BDD?  Do you know your ImageX from your WinPE?  Well, today is your lucky day.

We're running a series of 1-day classroom sessions, where you can go along and learn everything you need to know about deploying Vista, and also the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

The course will combine presentations with a number of technical exercises to give you real hands on experience in working with the Vista and Office deployment tools.

You can find all the info on the 3 sessions, and register, here:

1. 44CO015 - Microsoft Windows Vista- Doing Deployment Right! - 19th June 2007, London
2. 44CO015 - Microsoft Windows Vista- Doing Deployment Right! - 20th June 2007, London
3. 44CO015 - Microsoft Windows Vista- Doing Deployment Right! - 22nd June 2007, Leeds

So, some official details from the Partner Site:

About The Training
This one-day session is a combination of presentations that focus on growing services opportunities for partners, and a series of new technical exercises that highlight some of the compelling new design enhancements in deploying Windows Vista desktops. This course will concentrate on two of the key services opportunity areas for Windows Vista within your organization:

• Planning services - which includes infrastructure development services to support desktop migrations and Windows Vista business value consulting
• Integration services - which include deployment services and resources, and application compatibility

We will also cover how Windows Vista and Microsoft Office deployment tools, technologies, and Best Practices can help partners to address these top customer issues:

• Application compatibility and user state migration
• Cost, complexity and time needed to deploy desktops
• Infrastructure and tools to enable smooth deployment
• Best practices and implementation guidelines
• 2007 Office system migration, conversion, and deployment tools and utilities

Session Agenda

This course will include the following topics:

• Windows opportunity roadmap for partners
• Deploying Windows Vista
• Windows Vista desktop management
• Maintaining reliability with Windows Vista
• Key partner programs
• Windows Vista deployment goals
• Deployment design innovations
• Windows Vista deployment tools
• Application Compatibility Toolkit
• Microsoft Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT)
• Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
• ImageX and WIM image format
• Windows Setup Manager
• Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE)
• Desktop deployment phases
• Planning
• Engineering
• Implementation
• Best Practices for deployment
• New computer installations
• Upgrade computer installations
• Computer-to-computer deployment
• Deploying 2007 Office system
• Understanding Office Migration and Customization Strategies
• Office Migration Planning Manager (OMPM)
• Converters for Compatibility
• Office Resource Kit (ORK)