The Get On The Bus tour is coming and we’re bringing some free SWAG!

We are giving away 50 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate for the first 50 Get On the Bus event attendees through the door at EVERY STOP! Don’t miss your chance to win a copy of Microsoft’s newest software offering plus some chances at some other great swag so hurry and register today at www.thebustour.com.

What is the “Get On The Bus Tour”? Well, it’s where Microsoft comes to you. We are coming to the East Coast May 21-June 4! Come spend some time with us as we travel the East Coast for a deep dive into Windows 7 and Office 2010, along with a specific path on how to get certified. Learn why Windows 7 has received rave reviews from IT organizations and why so many IT Pros are excited about Office 2010. We will show you best practices for deploying Windows 7 and how to keep it running efficiently after deployment. We will also take a tour through all of the Office 2010 features from an IT Professional’s point of view. Registration is free but limited at http://thebustour.com .

For the latest updates follow us on Twitter @thebustour

Disclaimer:

To receive your free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, be one of the first 50 people who are US residents (includes D of C) or Canada 18+ to arrive at a Microsoft Get On the Bus Tour afternoon event.  50 copies of the software title are available. Limit one gift per person.  This offer is non-transferable and cannot be combined with any other offer.  This offer ends on June 4, 2010 while supplies last, and is not redeemable for cash.  Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient.  There is no shipment of your gift – all gifts will be distributed onsite.

In November 2009 we ran a small scale beta of the 2.0 version of the Asset Inventory Service (AIS) and got a lot of feedback on the product which has helped us get to feature complete.  We are interested in getting even more input from the community, so today we are announcing an open beta for anyone (current MDOP customer or not) who is interested in trying out the service.

Some of the key changes in AIS 2.0:

·         Improved user interface

·         Title normalization and version aggregation in software reporting

·         Virtual machine and App-V package support in software reporting

·         Improved Microsoft licensing reports

·         Better hardware reporting and the ability to view the hardware properties of a computer

This open beta is feature complete and localized in English only (additional languages will be made available in a future beta tests).  We ask participants to please submit their feedback to us on their experiences with the service and will consider this input for the RTW version.  Please be aware that all inventory data that you upload will be deleted once the beta is completed at the end of June 2010. 

To sign up for the beta, please go to – https://connect.microsoft.com/site310/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=3615&pageType=1

You will need to have a Microsoft Live ID to join.  Once you have signed up and accepted the AIS pre-release online services agreement, we will begin process of provisioning your AIS account and send you an email within seven days with the account details.

One of my friends has a cozy home near campus but recently decided to upgrade to a nicer place. Her new home has all the latest creature comforts like home automation and an upgraded security system. According to her, the best part is that it’s further away from campus.

When it came time to move, she discovered her attic was full of things she’d collected over the years. Rather than sort through it all, get rid of the junk, and move only the real treasures, she chose just to move it all to the new house. She ended up doing a lot of extra work packing and unpacking things that she didn’t really need or even want.

Her move is similar to your predicament: You’re busy packing up for the move to Windows 7. However, you’re missing a key opportunity to make the job easier by using the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). You probably own it already. Pulling MDOP off the shelf and rolling it out during your Windows 7 refresh can help you do it more efficiently and less painfully. How? Over the next few blog posts I’ll show you how, but for now I’ll start with pre-migration, when you’re planning a Windows 7 rollout.

An inventory is the foundation on which you build a successful rollout plan. Not only does it describe where you’re going but also from where you’re starting. If you’re business is like many, though, you haven’t inventoried your computers in years. Yes, you probably have an inventory of each computer asset, and yes, you know they’re running Windows XP. But do you know what devices and applications are on them? You can’t plan for application and device compatibility without this information.

An intriguing statistic that we all know intuitively is that the top 20% of applications are on 80% or more of the desktop computers. These aren’t usually the applications that sneak up and bite you during a rollout. The other 80% of the applications—the ones that are less well known and less well tested—are the ones about which you need to know. Additionally, how much easier would your Windows 7 refresh be if you could easily identify and eliminate duplicate, unnecessary, and undesirable applications? Each application you can toss is just one less thing to do—one less point of failure.

MDOP includes a feature to help you complete this all important first planning step: The Microsoft Asset Inventory Service (AIS). Using AIS can give you a comprehensive view of the applications and devices on your desktop computers. In addition to the basic inventory, AIS can help you understand the usage patterns of those applications. Armed with that information, you can identify the top 20% and bottom 80% of the applications in your organization. You can eliminate applications to reduce the inventory, and you can better prioritize your application-compatibility testing efforts. AIS can help you translate your inventory in to useful, actionable information.

I also want to touch lightly on System Center Desktop Error Monitoring (DEM)—not because it’s a great planning tool but because it can help you more carefully watch for side effects during your rollout. To use DEM for that purpose, however, you have to prepare it in advance. DEM is an agentless monitoring system that’s very simple to deploy. It monitors failures and can help identify their causes and their resolutions. By deploying DEM early, you can compare metrics before and after rollout. This comparison can give you invaluable insight in to the impact of deployment. Back up that fuzzy feeling you have about the stability of your work with facts provided by DEM.

The time to deploy MDOP is when you begin planning your move to Windows 7. In my next blog post, I’ll talk about MDOP features that can help make the actual move easier. Until then, take a look at the article Optimizing Windows 7 Deployment with MDOP—it gives you roadmap for where I’m heading.

Today we announced the availability of MDOP 2010 Refresh.
As planned, the update for MDOP 2010 includes:

• Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) 1.0 SP1 - now available for production deployment on Windows 7
• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.6 - localized client versions and additional languages support
  (App-V 4.6 English version was released on February 22, 2010. For additional details see our previous blog post.)

Existing MDOP customers can download MDOP 2010 Refresh at the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).  For evaluation, MDOP 2010 Refresh can be downloaded from MSDN and TechNet.

What's new in MED-V 1.0 SP1?

• Support for Windows 7 hosts - 32-bit and 64-bit
• MED-V server support for Windows Server 2008 R2
• Support for Japanese Windows versions

Guest support is still focused on legacy OS environments - Windows XP SP3 and Windows 2000 SP4.
To learn more please visit www.microsoft.com/med-v

What languages are now supported in App-V 4.6?

• We now have localized versions of the App-V Client for 23 languages including: Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish , Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
• App-V Sequencer is localized for 11 languages.
• Finally, even if there's no localized version for your language, App-V now works and is supported on 36localized Windows versions.

To learn more please visit www.microsoft.com/appv