Windows Deployment Stuff : 2007 Office System

Desktop Deployment Summit - 18th September

Jason Stiff — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 00:11:58 GMT

With Windows Vista and Office 2007 now well established, many organisations are reviewing when and how to migrate to Windows Vista and Office 2007. As part of our Windows Vista & Office 2007 deployment awareness events here in the UK, we are holding the Microsoft Desktop Deployment Summit in association with QA-IQ and Camwood on Tuesday 18th September 2007 at Microsoft's Thames Valley Park HQ in Reading. This FREE event gives businesses the opportunity to understand how they can prepare to deploy and the toolsets available to assist in their deployment projects.

Register for this free event here. Content is delivered by deployment specialists from the Microsoft Deployment Center of Excellence and our partners QA-IQ and Camwood. The agenda for the day is:

09:00 – 09:30 Registration & Coffee

09:30 – 09:35 Welcome

09:35 – 10:05 Keynote "Deployment Challenges”

10:05 – 10:35 BDD 2007 Methodology – Keith Baker, Deployment Technical Specialist, Microsoft

10:35 – 10:50 Break

10.50 – 12.00 BDD 2007 Technical Walk Through – Mark Cresswell, Technical Instructor, QA-IQ & Jason Stiff, Deployment Technical Specialist, Microsoft

12.00 – 12.40 Lunch

12:40 – 12:55 BDD 2007 Session Follow-up and Q&A - Mark Cresswell, Technical Instructor, QA-IQ, Keith Baker, Deployment Technical Specialist, Microsoft & Jason Stiff, Deployment Technical Specialist, Microsoft

12:55 – 13:55 Office 2007 Compatibility – Discussion and Demonstration – Steve Green, IW Technical Specialist, Microsoft & Steve Reay, Senior IT Program Manager, Microsoft

13:55 – 14:10 Break

14:10 – 15:10 Office 2007 Deployment – Discussion and Demonstration – Steve Green, IW Technical Specialist, Microsoft & Steve Reay, Senior IT Program Manager, Microsoft

15:10 – 15:55 Application Remediation – Preparing applications for migrating to Windows Vista - Camwood

16:00 – 16:15 Close

So find out how to make deployment easier and register today.

Desktop Deployment Planning Services for Windows Vista and Office 2007 Deployment

Jason Stiff — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:37:00 GMT

As a deployment specialist, in my opinion DDPS is one of the most useful yet underutilized Software Assurance benefits available to customers with SA. The numbers of customers entitled to the benefit but are either unaware if its impact, not aware of what it is or whether they are even entitled to it has surprised me to say the least. Any organization looking at deploying Windows Vista/XP or the Microsoft Office system 2007/2003 can't afford not to explore the benefits DDPS has to offer. One of the largest cost elements when managing a desktop infrastructure is labour costs. The traditional manual approach costs time, money and is by its nature resource intensive, so minimizing this impact is very important. Automating the processes can result in higher productivity, lower the cost of your infrastructure and help you realize the return on your software investment.

DDPS offers 1, 3, 5, 10 or 15 day engagements (dependant on your SA value). Based around the Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007, it provides the guidance around the tools, technologies and best practice processes enabling businesses to plan, execute and achieve the most cost effective desktop environment. DDPS is delivered by certified deployment consultants from our one of our participating Microsoft services partners or Microsoft Consulting Services ensuring high quality, successful engagements.

If finding a better way to manage and deploy your desktop infrastructure is high on your priority list then see what DDPS can do for you at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/sa/benefits/deployment.mspx

Partners

The Desktop Deployment Planning Service collateral, deployment tools and guidance has been updated for Windows Vista and 2007 Office. With the recent release of the associated Business Desktop Deployment 2007 Solution Accelerator, partners can continue to deliver high-quality, high-impact optimized desktop deployment engagements of our latest products.

The DDPS demo environment and engagement materials were released February 16th. This includes decks, documents, deliverables, VPCs and how-to documentation.

What's new in DDPS v2.0?

Updated Tools and Guidance

New process/design oriented structure (Plan, Build, Deploy, Operate)
BDD 2007 support
BDD Workbench, Windows Automated Installation Toolkit, System Image Manager, Windows PE 2.0, SMS 2003 SP2/3 etc.
Office 2007 and Windows Vista support (including Office Migration and Planning guidance)
Application Compatibility Toolkit v5

Updated Deployment Cost Calculator

2007 Office and Vista deployment scenarios
Updated localized costs and productivity metrics
Updated calculations for USMT, SoftGrid packaging and testing applications

Microsoft Desktop Optimization modules

SoftGrid, Asset Metrics, Forefront

Licensing and Activation modules

Windows Activation
Decision matrices for product and SKU selection

New Certification Exam

70-624

Updated Demo Environment

Up-to-date patches (as of production)
2007 Office and Vista
BDD 2007 (RTM) and WAIK tools
Lite-Touch, Zero-Touch, and Baremetal scenarios
SoftGrid

We have created updated collateral that includes the description, guidance and promotion of both content versions of DDPS. This updated starter kit, and all updated collateral is available on the DDPS Partner Portal.

Deploying the 2007 Office System at Microsoft

Jason Stiff — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:08:41 GMT

Working in the Deployment Centre of Excellence (CoE) here in the UK, our primary focus is around deploying the Windows Client platform using BDD 2007. In our sessions we also give guidance on installing the Microsoft Office system, be it 2003 or 2007, as part of a desktop deployment project. We are very rarely asked to deliver sessions based on an Office only deployment. But this is starting to change, with more organisations starting to look into updating their Office systems, but choosing to wait before committing to Vista. One of the questions that are often asked is 'How does Microsoft do it?'

The Microsoft IT Showcase is THE place to get the most up-to-date best practice guidance and experience from Microsoft IT. It gives a great insight into how Microsoft implements its own enterprise level solutions. Recently posted was the content on deploying the 2007 Office system at Microsoft. There is a great technical white paper detailing the experience Microsoft IT had deploying the pre-release version, focusing on aspects from the delivery process and installation to the new deployment tools utilized in the 2007 Office system. There are also some other great resources available including a TechNet Radio segment as well as a webcast session.

If deploying the 2007 Office system is relevant for your organisation, then go check out these great resources.