When you deploy Windows Vista, which of your applications and hardware devices
will survive the upgrade? Before you spend a lot of time and money answering
that question, check out the free downloadable tools from Microsoft you can
use to help your Vista upgrade go smoothly. You can use Microsoft's new Solution
Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (BDD) to download tools that
help you determine which of your existing computers can be upgraded to Vista
and which cannot. The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment (WVHA) tool gathers
hardware and software inventory from your entire network. Windows Vista Upgrade
Advisor 2.0 (WVUA) reports hardware and software inventory from a single computer.
And the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (ACT) helps troubleshoot applications
that don't run properly in Vista.
Let's look at how to install and run these tools. I zero in on creating an
inventory, analyzing reports, and the importance of testing your applications
on Vista. For a quick reference, see the sidebar "Steps for Preparing for Vista
Deployment".
Installing BDD
Installing BDD requires Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0, which ships
with Vista. So, if you're installing BDD on Windows XP SP2, first download and
install the MMC 3.0 update from Microsoft (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907265).
Then download BDD (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads). WVUA is a separate download,
also available from the Microsoft download center. You must ensure that the
version of BDD and its tools match: If you're using the beta version of BDD,
you must have the beta version of the tools; if you're using the RTM version
of BDD, you need the RTM version of the tools.
Once you have BDD installed, add the components you'll use for the planning
phase of your deployment project. Open the Deployment Workbench from Start,
All Programs, BDD 2007. Then expand Information Center in the tree pane, as
Figure 1, shows. You'll highlight Windows
Vista Hardware Assessment in the Components pane and click the Download button
that appears in the Details pane. Perform the same steps for the ACT. After
the toolsets are downloaded, they will appear in a list in the Downloaded section
of the Components pane.
WVHA scans and inventories your networked computers by using Windows Management
Instrumentation (WMI) calls, so no agents are required. The inventoried data
is stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database. If you don't have SQL Server,
the WVHA setup wizard will prompt you to download and install SQL Server 2005
Express Edition from Microsoft; it'll work just fine. The reports will be created
using either Microsoft Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or Word
2003 SP2 and Excel 2003 SP2. (If you don't already have Microsoft Office 2007,
you might want to go to http://us20.trymicrosoftoffice.com/default.aspx
and download the free 60-day trial version.)
You need a local user account that has administrator privileges for the computers
you want to scan and inventory, and the file and printer sharing service (found
in your NIC properties) must be enabled. WVHA 2.0 can scan and inventory up
to 25,000 computers. The supported desktop OSs WVHA can scan are Vista, XP SP2,
and Windows 2000 Professional. The supported server OSs are Windows Server 2003
R2, Windows 2003, and Windows 2000 Server.
To install WVHA, select it in
the Downloaded section of the
Components pane and click the
Browse button to display the
setup program. Double-clicking
the setup program launches the
WVHA setup wizard. Choose
where you want to install WVHA,
and you're finished.
Running WVHA
Open WVHA and launch its wizard by clicking Start, All Programs, Windows Vista
Hardware Assessment. The wizard prompts you for a SQL Server database in which
to store the inventory data. You can either create a new database, as shown
in Figure 2, or use an existing one. If you'd
like to add the information to an existing database, select Use an existing
database. Click Next. The wizard then lets you choose to collect information
from computers in your environment, generate inventory and assessment reports,
or connect to Microsoft.com to download the most current hardware compatibility
information.
Next, WVHA needs to find the computers you've chosen to be scanned and inventoried.
Find the computers by selecting from among the following options on the Computer
Discovery page:
- The Use the Windows networking protocols option uses the Computer
Browser service to retrieve a list of known workgroups and domains on the
local subnet. If you're in a workgroup environment with more than one subnet
or a Windows NT 4.0 domain, you'll need to run WVHA on each subnet.
- The Use Active Directory Domain Services option sends an LDAP query
to a domain controller to retrieve a list of computer objects from Active
Directory (AD).
- The Import computer names from a file option lets you create a text
file containing the names of the computers that you want to scan.
- The Manually enter computer names and credentials option lets you
manually enter the name of each computer that you want WVHA to scan and the
credentials for a local administrator account for that computer.
For testing purposes, or if I have only a few computers to scan, I use the third or fourth option.
The options you choose on the Computer
Discovery page determine the subsequent
pages you see. For example, when you select
the Windows networking protocols option,
the next page is the Windows Networking
Protocols page. Your workgroups and domains
should be listed on this page. If the list is empty,
ensure that the Computer Browser service
is running on the computer on which you're
running WVHA.
When you choose Active Directory Domain Services, the Active Directory Inventory
page is displayed and lets you specify the DNS domain name and credentials for
an account that has read access to retrieve a list of AD objects. Usernames
and passwords entered in the WVHA tool are not stored locally; they're encrypted
and stored in RAM, so you need to re-enter the credentials every time you run
WVHA.