Windows Deployment Stuff : Vista

Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance…Need Answers?

Jason Stiff — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:02:40 GMT

On Wednesday, September 24^th, join Mark Russinovich and a panel of industry experts for a LIVE virtual roundtable to explore your top of mind performance issues, common misconfigurations, and tips on how to fix them.

From boot times and applets to disk performance and battery life, find out how to optimize Windows Vista and what you can do to improve overall system performance.

Ask your questions live during the event!
As a virtual attendee, you will have the opportunity to submit questions to the panel during the live event. You can also submit your performance questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

JOIN US SEPTEMBER 24TH
HTTPS://MS.ISTREAMPLANET/SPRINGBOARD

Save the date!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
9:00am Pacific Standard Time (GMT –8)

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 Windows Vista

Jason Stiff — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 14:56:03 GMT

"For the first time since Windows NT, Microsoft has dramatically improved how users, enterprises, PC makers, and OEMs configure, install, and deploy Windows. New capabilities, such as offline servicing and the ability to create just one install image for multiple hardware configurations, make Windows deployment easier than ever. But if you're an IT administrator who'll need to deploy Windows Vista either now or in the future, you've got a lot to learn."

Paul Thurrott's article is a great read. It gives a great insight into how Windows Vista has changed the face of operating system deployment and how the tools and OS architecture have achieved this. Although Paul goes into some detail around the deployment tools, there is no mention of BDD 2007, even though this is the preferred model of deployment for most organizations. BDD 2007 takes the tools covered in Paul's article and incorporates them into one easily managed framework.

For more info on BDD 2007 take a look at the technet site http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/bdd/2007/default.mspx

Vista is here... Time to deploy!

Jason Stiff — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:47:00 GMT

With the general availability of Windows Vista last week and now with all the deployment tools available, there is no better time to start evaluating and planning your Windows Vista migration. Whether you're a home user looking to upgrade to the latest and greatest or an IT Director looking at deploying the next generation Windows & Office System platform, everything you need to make that informed choice is here to help you.

For the home user, http://www.windowsvista.com gives you the ability to experience the "WOW" of Windows Vista. It gives the chance to see Windows Vista in action and to learn about all the great new features that will benefit the home user and families.

For the corporate and enterprise customers http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/enterprise/default.mspx is a great place to evaluate the definitive choice for your business. Explore the features and benefits to help drive your business forward. IT Pros, go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/default.aspx to get the latest technical developments around the Windows Vista platform in the Windows Vista TechCenter.

For the ultimate enterprise resource for desktop deployment take a visit to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/desktopdeployment/default.mspx. This is one of the best resources available to IT pros looking at deploying Windows Vista in the enterprise or SME space.