Essential Tool for the Job - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Windows Vista (RTM Announcement)

June 30th, 2008 by Baldwin Ng

RTM Announcement - Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 

Hello,

It's been a few months since I last blogged about the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 - formerly known as WVHA or Windows Vista Hardware Assessment.  Today, I'd like to announce the RTM release of this tool with new capabilities including desktop security assessment, Hyper-V virtualization assessment, and more.

As you know, many of the IT pros out there like you are now spending a lot of time planning for Windows Vista deployments.  But many question and challenges remain:

  • Are my existing PCs compatible to Windows Vista when it comes to Hardware and Device Compatibility?
  • Will my PCs have BIOS issues after the upgrade to Windows Vista?
  • Which of my PCs are ripe for an upgrade to Windows Vista?  (e.g. CPU too old so it's time to replace them; or just add 512MB system memory and the PCs would be Windows Vista capable!)
  • What kind of software has been installed?
  • Are all of my PCs secure?  Is Windows Security Center installed?  Do they have Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware software installed?  How about Windows Firewall settings?
  • What about application virtualization readiness?

The MAP Toolkit 3.1 is designed to address all of these desktop-side issues from a single tool! The MAP Toolkit is a platform of tools that combines the strength of agentless discovery and report generation capabilities from the previous generation (Windows Vista Hardware Assessment). The pie-chart below is part of an auto-generated readiness report from the MAP Toolkit and it illustrates the level of hardware readiness for Windows Vista upgrades across the desktop infrastructure.

As a matter of fact, if you view the latest MAP Team RTM blog post from yesterday, you will find that the MAP Toolkit 3.1 also havs many server-side and virtualization features including a Hyper-V virtualization candidates assessment and SQL Server discovery!!   

Cheers!
Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators - Virtualization Lead)

 


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