Coming Soon – DaRT 7!

This week a MMS, Microsoft announced the upcoming beta of DaRT 7, the Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit. The beta will be out in early April and customers can sign up for the beta at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=213952.
Some of the new features to look forward to are:

• Added remote control functionality - remotely control a machine that won't even boot into Windows by using WinPE.
• Fully supported USB Boot, as well as network boot and local installation.
• Local Tool Security - restrict the locally installed tools so that they can only be used during a remote recovery request to your helpdesk.

Learn more on Springboard by checking out this Q&A with Stephen Rose and Brad McCabe on the Windows Team Blog.

Inside MDOP: AGPM 4.0

In case you missed the PacITPros meeting on December 7th, you missed out on some interesting vendor and technical presentations.  In addition to a presentation from BlueCat Networks and Hurricane Electric, I did a short demo of one of the MDOP tools - the Advanced Group Policy Manager 4.0.

This tool hooks right into the existing Group Policy Manager snap-in you know and love in your MMC and with the use of a designated archive server, extends the functionality to include better search features and change management.  No matter the size of your organization or the number of IT staff you share group policy tasks with, you can benefit from this tool.  Even if you are the only person who does anything with group policies, this tool will make your life easier.

First, the change control features take away much of the pain of keeping track of what was changed when and potentially by who.  Policies that are controlled by the system must be checked in and out for adjustments, which automatically creates a history record capturing the state of a policy at any given time.  These records can easily be reviewed for corporate compliance and policies can even be rolled back to previous states.

With new roles created within the tool, non-admininstrators (even regular domain users) can be granted the ability to review or edit policies... leaving the actual deployment and linking of the GPOs to system administrators.

The abililty to search and filter your view of policies is much improved.  You can search by name, state (checked in, checked out), even by variables such being updated "last month" or "last week". 

Finally, you can easily import and export policies, even across forests.  No more manual recreation of the perfect policy just because you want to use it in your test lab environment or in another forest.

Finally, keep in mind that APGM 4.0 adds support for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7, as well as runs on Windows Server 2008 and Vista.  If you are supporting an environment with older versions of Windows Server, consider version 2.5 or 3.0 of the tool.  Not of all of the features are included, but if you are looking specifically for the change management aspects, those older versions may work for you until you upgrade your servers.

Out of the six tools in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, APGM isn't one I'd overlook. 

Upcoming Tech Events

In case you are lacking in some tech related places to be, here are a few good options for the upcoming week.

November 2nd - You should vote, of course.  But when you are finished that, swing by the Pacific IT Professionals meeting in San Francisco.  There will be a presentation from NetApp on storage solutions, followed by two Microsoft specific topics -  BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) and MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack).  I'll be doing the MDOP presentation, so if you aren't sure what applications come inside that pack and what they do, this will be a great chance for you to get an overview.

November 3-4th - The gogoNet LIVE! IPv6 Conference in San Jose. I hear the pre-conference workshops are booked up, but it's not to late to attend the 2 days of sessions on planning and transitioning to IPv6.  I'll be helping out with some of the conference logistics on the 3rd and am hoping to slip into a few of the presentations as well.
 
Today and the next couple Thursdays - Callahan, a Microsoft MVP and book author on SharePoint, is offering up several free webinar presentations on SharePoint Foundation.  Today's session is already started, but you might want to check out what she has to offer in the coming weeks. If I was migrating my current SharePoint WSS 3.0 installation to Foundations, I'd start my planning with anything Callahan has to offer.

The Springboard Series Tour takes on Europe!

Just wanted to share some information I regarding the Springboard Series Tour, scheduled to begin in late October in Europe.  If you happen to be in any of the cities listed below, don't miss out.

Microsoft Windows, Office and MDOP Deployment Workshops 

www.springboardseriestour.com

• Amsterdam - 25 Oct
• Stockholm – 27 Oct
• Helsinki – 29 Oct
• Reading – 1 Nov
• Rome – 3 Nov
• Vienna – 4 Nov

The Microsoft Get On the Bus Tour is taking a winter hiatus to bring you a new tour – the Springboard Series Tour: Microsoft Windows, Office and MDOP Deployment Workshops!  Amsterdam marks our first stop on a 6-city European tour, en route to TechEd Europe, in Berlin, Germany. Are you looking to plan, pilot or deploy Windows and Office? Our workshops will cover the Office 2010, key deployment strategies for Windows 7, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, as well as show you the value of getting trained and certified in these key products. 

Learn why Windows 7 has received rave reviews from IT organizations and is setting records as the fastest selling operating system in history, and find out why so many IT Pros are ready to deploy Office 2010. Give us five hours, and you will have a clear understanding of the tools, tips and tricks you need now to jumpstart the successful deployment and management of your Windows desktop environment today. Come join members of the Windows and Office US Product Teams, as well as local Microsoft Technology Evangelists for technical training, professional networking, and real world guidance. Don’t miss your chance to attend a workshop in the 2010 Springboard Series Tour, register today at www.springboardseriestour.com.

Get your Tour updates first! Follow us on Twitter, @MSSpringboard

App-V vs. Terminal Services – Which one, when?

Both App-V and Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services can reduce the amount of time an IT Professional spends installing, managing and troubleshooting applications on desktops. Both technologies allow you to install, upgrade and manage an application in one place (on a server) and allow multiple users access to those applications. And then the similarities start to end.

Terminal Services/RDS is based on session hosting. The users must establish a session with the host server to access the application. Depending on what version of Windows Server you are using, the applications can appear on the desktop seamlessly using either RemoteApp or other 3rd party technologies. While this is great for workers who are located locally in the office or are regularly connected via the Internet from another location, the applications are not accessible when the client machine is working offline.

App-V streams the packaged applications to the client machine, which are then cached locally for use while working on or offline. The applications can be managed and updated on the server side and the client machines receive updates when they reconnect. This allows for better control of the overall software lifecycle and ensures that every client is running the approved version of any given application.

When it comes to support for legacy applications, especially those that will not run on Windows 7, App-V isn’t necessarily going to be the solution. Any application streamed from App-V must be sequenced and packaged for the destination operating system, though I've heard of some success with XP-sequenced apps working on Windows 7, so your mileage may vary. App-V requires the applications to interact with the client operating system in order to take advantage the local system resources. This is also important for applications that must interact with each other and with the local drivers on the machine, to deliver an experience similar to having the application installed in the traditional fashion.

If you have an application that won’t run on Windows 7, you’ll have to turn to a solution other than App-V. If you already have a legacy Server 2003 Terminal Services infrastructure in place that can deliver the application, it might be easier and more cost effective to look at using that instead of deploying MED-V. (See my post on TS vs. MED-V in April.)

Legacy applications aside, what if all your applications are Windows 7 ready? Can RDS make more sense than App-V?

First, you have to consider your users. Do the work online or offline? Do you have the RDS infrastructure to support having EVERYONE access applications during the work day? Having everyone access hosted applications is resource intensive on the server. If you currently have an implementation that used for only a few remote workers or for little used applications you’ll have to look closely at how much those servers will be able to support. App-V might be a better fit if you want to take advantage the resources on the local machines instead.

You can also combine App-V with Remote Desktop Services to make better use of server farm resources. Ultimately, there are a lot of different ways to deliver software to your end users and it doesn’t have to involving managing applications on each desktop.

Can MED-V take on Terminal Services?

Had a great conversation with an MMS 2010 attendee while I was helping man the Windows Manageability booth at the Expo Pavilion this week. We were discussing his existing applications, moving to Windows 7 and he asked “When is it appropriate to use MED-V, since I already have a legacy application on Terminal Services?”

Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization is a great way to manage the deployment of applications that will not run on Windows 7, but run on Windows XP. By providing a managed, virtual, integrated copy of Windows XP running inside Windows 7, users can still access a legacy application seamlessly from their desktop.

However, MED-V is not the ultimate solution to getting legacy applications to run on Windows 7 indefinitely. Its a way to get Windows 7 onto desktops without being held back by a specific application that is not yet ready to be upgraded, replaced or phased out of use.

But what if you already have the application available through Terminal Services? You may be running Citrix on Server 2003 Terminal Services. Or maybe the application will run on Vista and can be deployed using Server 2008 TS RemoteApp. Both those options are easier to manage than deploying and managing a host of extra virtual Windows XP machines on your network, especially if you already have an appropriate Terminal Services environment available.

MED-V is a tool to consider if you are Software Assurance customer, because access to the MDOP tools cost only about $7-8 per desktop. This can be cheaper than the cost of Terminal Service or Citrix CALs, unless of course, you already own those CALs.

MED-V and Terminal Services aren’t competing solutions for the same problem. But they can help you accomplish the same goal – getting your users working on Windows 7.

More from MDOP: Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset

Every IT Professional loves a toolkit - you know that special DVD or flash drive with your favorite go-to applications for solving problems. Here’s a little something to add to the mix: DaRT, the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset, which comes as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

Designed to help reduce the time spent repairing damaged Windows system, it includes 14 different tools, a veritable Swiss Army knife for Windows. Use DaRT to help with tasks like:

• Recover an unbootable PC, even when it won’t boot in Safe mode
• Access deleted files
• Reset passwords
• Detect and remove malware when the PC is offline
• Wipe hard drives
• Access files from a unbootable OS
• Uninstall hotfixes

DaRT will run on top the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and the DaRT tools and the WinRE tools run side by side so you can use them both together to recover systems. You can also create customized DaRT boot disks that only include a subset of tools for different uses. Overall, DaRT may help reduce the amount of time you need to spend repairing and reimaging systems for end users – getting people back to their regular duties sooner and improving the TCO on your desktops.

To learn more, check out this overview of DaRT on Microsoft Technet. DaRT is part of MDOP, which is available to Software Assurance and volume licensing customers.

Inside MDOP: MED-V and App-V

Inside the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, you’ll find MED-V and App-V. Both provide ways to deliver applications to your desktop, but they solve different problems.

MED-V is good for resolving incompatibilities between an application and Windows 7. By creating and distributing a full instance of Windows XP from which the application runs, users can access applications that would not run on Windows 7 otherwise. It’s also applicable for websites that must run in a browser like Internet Explorer 6. For example, an IE 6 instance can be launched from within the MED-V managed OS and be controlled with policies to limit the sites that are available from the less secure browser.

In general, a MED-V hosted application is isolated from the primary operating system, though the clipboard can be shared to allow for basic copy/paste functionality between applications and printer redirection can ensure users can print from the MED-V application. If your application is very task specific and does not require direct interactions with other applications on the primary operating system, MED-V can allow you to upgrade to Windows 7 before solving the application compatibility issue.

Application Virtualization (App-V) creates and delivers a single application in a package, instead of a full instance of an operating system like MED-V. The application package is cached on the local machine, but in not installed in the traditional sense. By not installing application files directly and keeping them isolated in their packages, App-V can eliminate conflicts between two applications that might otherwise cause failures when installed on the same machine. An example would be where Office 97 and later versions of Office share DLLs with similar names, but have functionality that doesn't work with both products.

App-V also eases application upgrades and maintenance by allowing IT to update single packages that are then streamed to users on demand, instead of having to managing multiple local installations of software. Because applications deployed with App-V execute locally on the desktop they utilize the CPU and memory resources of the local machine instead of those on the server. Inter-application communication with other App-V applications and applications installed locally are preserved, allowing for cut and paste, OLE, and all other standard operations. However applications that install their own device driver, like a print driver, may not be suitable for complete virtualization.

In a nutshell, App-V can help you develop a more robust and controlled application management lifecycle, while allowing support for some legacy applications that don’t play well with new versions. MED-V builds a “temporary” bridge between applications that only work on older operating systems, providing some wiggle room so you can potentially upgrade your desktops without having to wait until all your applications are supported.

Depending on the needs of your organization, MED-V or App-V might be just what you need to solve a lingering application compatibility issue.

Two days at Microsoft: What makes an Optimized Desktop?

This week I’ve had the honor of spending two days at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, learning about the components of MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) and concept of the “Optimized Desktop”.

The discussions topics for the training revolved around the primary problem with desktop management: The components of a PC are bound together, making hardware and software difficult and expensive to replace and manage. Software and OS upgrades can slow drastically when the life-cycle of aging hardware components dictate what’s possible in the organization. Also, applications need consistent management to allow for ease of maintenance and the eventual retirement of dated and insecure tools.

Also, with new opportunities and challenges with cloud services, highly mobile workers and cutting edge consumer products, IT Professionals have a lot of needs to juggle to keep everyone working effectively. Users want easy access to their data from different devices, regardless of where it’s located – local to their office PC or laptop, on the corporate network or in the cloud.

The next generation optimized Windows desktop uses several applications found in MDOP to separate user data & settings, applications and the operating system from the hardware so they can be managed independently. This can make the adoption of newer, more secure operating systems easier to attain.

Ultimately, the Optimized Desktop helps bring some essential features to the finger tips of both the IT Pros and the users they support: end-to-end management, better application experiences, improved security and data protection, anywhere access for users, and reliable business continuity.

The components of MDOP include:

• Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V)
• Application Virtualization (App-V)
• Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT)
• System Center Desktop Error Monitoring (DEM)
• Asset Inventory Service (AIS)
• Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM)

I won’t drill down into each of those components in this particular post, but trust you’ll see more about these tools in the near future. Brad McCabe, Senior Product Manager for Windows Client, put together an full agenda for those of us in attendance and I was excited to be able to participate.

Finally, if you aren’t sure where you can go and what you can do with Desktop Virtualization (VDI), don’t miss out on the Desktop Virtualization Hour, Thursday 3/18 at 9am.