Vista has a couple of features that improve its manageability, such as the ability to restrict access to external media devices, easy deployment of printer drivers and, most noteworthy, the image-based installation. However, myriad third-party tools also offer those features for Windows XP. That’s why moving to Vista provides little or no ROI from a systems management perspective.

You can find this line of argument in several other parts of the article. The Vista features that are worth mentioning are also available for XP from third-party vendors. Two counterarguments refute Kennedy’s claims. First of all, third-party tools usually don’t come for free, at least not for corporate environments. Second, it usually costs manpower to deploy them. Of course, if you already have all the software you need, then Kennedy’ argument is valid. However, next time you pay the yearly license fees for your third-party tools, you might also take into account that you could have had those features for free, if only you had already deployed Vista.

My main critique, however, is that my view, this article hopelessly underestimates those new imaging capabilities. They are indeed Vista’s only killer feature for organizations. I blogged about the technical background of Vista’s new cloning capabilities almost two years ago. I think the reason that many neglect the importance of this feature is because it is difficult to understand that benefiting from it requires completely changing ones deployment techniques. Most IT shops have sophisticated deployment methods, which typically rely on unattended installations.

If you fully embrace Vista’s imaging technology, you can often do without scripting, and even software deployment is obsolete in many cases. The fact that you now can create images in a virtual environment is an enormous timesaver by itself. You can add any kind of setting or software to your master image within minutes, then press a button and all machines will have the new configuration including all applications. You have a PC that has a problem and you didn’t find its cause immediately? Just press a button to deploy the latest OS image, and this PC is like new within minutes.

Of course, that might imply that you have to change a lot in your overall infrastructure. For example, you have to ensure that end users can store data only in their user profiles, you have to work with roaming user profiles, you have to invest some time getting acquainted with Wake-on-LAN and, depending on your organization’s size, you might need third party software that fully supports Vista’s image-based deployment, and so on. But I think that once you master all these obstacles, you will save much time in the future.

We already worked like this to a certain degree with Windows XP. The main problem with XP is that the number of different images you need tends to skyrocket if you have different kinds of hardware in your network. No third party tool can really help you with this problem. XP was just not designed for imaging. The creation of new images is also quite complicated because you have to work on real hardware. Creating new Vista images with a tool such as VMware Workstation is much more convenient because you can work with snapshots, clone images within seconds, manage a whole library of different configurations, etc.

I believe that it will take quite some time for Vista’s new imaging technology to receive the praise it deserves. The philosophy behind imaging-based desktop management is quite different from the traditional approach. Many IT administrators have to forget most of what they have learned about OS and software deployment. Those organizations that already have worked with imaging technology will adopt the new approach faster than those who swear by unattended installations.

So, yes, Vista will certainly provide ROI when it comes to systems management. But only if you are ready to invest some time to learn what image-based deployment really means.

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Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0

This tool is quite interesting and it might be helpful if you have an application that is not running properly under Vista. Basically, you use the tool to configure how Vista treats a certain legacy application. For example, you can tell Vista not to use its virtualization mechanism when a legacy app tries to write in forbidden areas. There are countless other settings.

The parameter that helps solve most compatibility issues is probably “RunAsAdmin”. Most of the legacy apps that have problems under Vista just have to be started with admin privileges to run, properly. Vista’s UAC has some mechanisms that automatically detect if a program has to be elevated, but sometimes this doesn’t work, properly.

The Compatibility Administrator comes with a database of legacy apps and the corresponding remedies to make them work under Vista. Perhaps you are lucky and your problematic application is among them. You can also use the examples in this database to get an idea how compatibility issues can be solved.

The one described in the vista4beginners blog uses the RunAsInvoker parameter which makes sure that an application runs with the same privileges as the parent process. For instance, if a program is configured to run with admin privileges under normal conditions, you can make sure that it will only be launched with standard user rights which will prevent UAC from prompting for consent.

If you want to get an idea how the Compatibility Administrator works, I recommend following the step-by-step guide in the vista4beginners blog. It will show you how to use the RunAsInvoker parameter to prevent UAC from issuing a prompt once the application is configured to run with admin privileges. Note that the reason why Vista doesn’t issue a UAC prompt in this example is because it just launches the app with standard user rights.

More information about the important parameters RunAsInvoker, RunAsHighest and RunAsAdmin can be found here. An interesting question certainly is how to deploy sdb files in your network. This technet article gives you an idea how it can be done.

Compatibility Administrator

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Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

First of all, this is a blog for Windows admins. You would expect a somewhat more positive attitude towards Vista. Considering that more than one third said that their organization will wait for Windows 7 and 19% even plans to move to another OS means that the majority of IT pros are quite dissatisfied with Vista.

Perhaps Vista SP1 will change this attitude a little. But I doubt that we will see major shifts here within the next year. However, I also believe that some organization will change their view when they have to buy new hardware. Since most companies stick with the Windows version once it is deployed on new hardware, it would mean that they had to live with XP for the next 3 to 5 years. And for their employees that would entail working soon with an OS that is more than 10 years old.

Most surprising, certainly, is that 19% are planning to move to another OS. In my original article about this poll, I asked them to choose this answer if Windows is the major desktop OS in their organization. I don’t know how many voters really read this article, though. Anyway, if those plans are put into action then Microsoft market share in the desktop OS market would drop far below 80%. It is hard to believe somehow that this would really happen. I guess it is quite enticing to express ones dissatisfaction with Vista in such a poll, but to actually change your whole infrastructure just because one of your printers isn’t supported anymore or because UAC gets on your nerves is somewhat different.

18% already deployed Vista which is not too bad considering the bad press coverage and 13% are planning to do so within this year. My guess is that the majority of them waited for SP1. The other 16% who want to move to Vista in 2009 probably would wait until they have to buy new PCs.

The result of this poll indicates that there are basically two groups among my readers. One group is quite dissatisfied with Vista. Most of them will probably not change their mind anymore. They will do everything to avoid Vista. The other group probably consists of two subgroups. Some like Vista, but for the majority it is just business as usual. Due to the lack of alternatives, they just go ahead and deploy Microsoft’s latest OS whenever they are ready for it. All in all, this confirms the impression I got when I talked with other IT pros about Vista in the last months.

You want to know to which group I belong? If you are a long term reader, you will know that I like Vista although I admit that it has quite a few downsides. At the moment, we only have a couple of Vista machines in my organization, but we will start the first major roll-out as soon as we get a large number of new PCs. We have been planning this for some months now. Actually, we are just waiting for the money. But in the public sector, these things are often hard to predict.

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Deployment 4 tightly integrates with Configuration Manager 2007, the successor of SMS 2003. This improves Microsoft’s systems management solution. It always was one of the drawbacks of SMS that it didn’t support OS deployment. The OS deployment feature pack for SMS 2003 was the first major step in this direction. Now, with the integration of Configuration Manager and Deployment 4, Microsoft finally offers a complete OS deployment solution.

There are some more new features. Please check out Richard Smith’s blog post for more details. I just had a quick look at it. The user interface looks pretty much like the old one.

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I agree that for bloggers a Mac is just fine since you only need a web browser. However, if you work with other software than mainstream apps, Windows is most often the only option. The Patchlink survey shows that Windows XP is doing a good job for most companies since all the software they need is running perfectly fine on it. So who needs Vista, then?

Microsoft obviously has a marketing problem. Their “wow campaign” was a complete failure because Vista simply has no obvious wow features and their customers are realizing that now. However, I think there are good reasons to upgrade to Vista even though it doesn’t offer any must-have features. Basically, there are two different kinds of arguments. One concerns user-related features and the other one comes from IT management.

I have been working with Vista on my own PCs since the final was out. In the beginning, I also was somewhat disappointed. The user interface looked different, but I couldn’t see anything that would improve my productivity. After several months I completely changed my mind. I can’t imagine going back to XP anymore. The strange thing is that I can’t tell you a concrete reason. I just realize that every time I logon to an XP machine, for example for testing purposes, I realize that something is missing. Sometimes it is the start search box, or the new Windows Explorer with its shortcut section, and sometimes I even miss Aero.

The point is that Vista has countless tiny improvements and this is really a hard one for every marketing professional. How can you list all 2750 new Vista features in an ad? And how can you convince IT journalists to write positive Vista reviews? A heading such as “Windows Explorer now has a shortcut section” does not really attract readers.

The other argument is often neglected in the discussion about Vista. From a system administrator’s point of view there is at least one wow feature: Vista’s new imaging technology. I’ve been writing about it before, so I won’t go into it again. This feature certainly simplifies OS deployment tremendously. I think many IT managers are not yet aware of this. Many companies still rely on unattended installations. Since they don’t have experience with cloning yet, they can’t imagine what advantages this new technology brings for OS deployment.

In my view, this feature is reason enough to move to Vista as soon as possible. You might say that this becomes only relevant when you have to buy new PCs. The force of this argument depends on the size of your organization. Bigger organizations permanently install new workstations. However, they have well-coordinated deployment strategies already. So they just keep on doing what they always did and continue installing Windows XP.

It will certainly make efforts before a big organization can change its deployment strategy and benefit from Vista new capabilities. This also applies to other fields. Software and hardware compatibility issues are another reason why many IT managers shy away from a Vista upgrade. The necessary preparations before a major Vista rollout are certainly enormous. And this explains the results of surveys like the one from Patchlink. I think that many simply underestimated the huge amount of time and energy required to upgrade to a new OS.

Improved security, countless tiny user interface enhancements, and the arguments of tech savvy admins are often not enough reason to convince CIOs to invest in those sumptuous preparations. However, I have no doubt that most companies will finally make this step as soon as they plan a major rollout of new PCs. Thus, we will only see a gradual increase of Vista installations in the next months. And by the way, this is nothing unusual. This is typical for new products from Redmond. It always takes some time until Microsoft’s customers are finally convinced.

I usually belong to those who are quite easily persuaded to use new technology. And even for me, it took several months until I fully embraced Vista. One thing is for sure, though. Those who hope that it is now the time for Apple or even Linux to step into the breach, underestimate Microsoft’s staying power. Attendees of a blogger conference might enjoy proudly showing off their stylish, white MacBooks. However, to read into this that “Windows Vista loses users” is a bit far-fetched.

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If you downloaded the latest versions of the BDD 2007, then you don’t need this update rollup. If you’re working with an older version, it is recommended that you install it. I counted about 30 bug fixes.

I must admit that I only played a little with the BDD 2007, but my first impression is quite positive. What I like is that all the necessary tools can be downloaded and installed right from the GUI. So it is unlike as with Forefront Client Security, where you have to go hunting first for all the required programs.

Note that you can use BDD 2007 not only for Vista, but also for Windows XP. If you want to get an idea first of how this tool is used, you can check out an article of the Lazy Admin, explaining how you can create a Windows XP image with BDD 2007. It seems he is not as lazy as he thinks since he made many screenshots.

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According to the publishing date it has been available since Feb. 13^th, but Nick MacKechnie, a Microsoft employee, claimed in his blog that they just published it today. Someone linked to the German version of the WAIK in a commentary here which, according to the publishing date, was already released in November 2006.

Anyway, I installed it today. It is working now without any tricks. Note that you have to install MSXML 6.0, first. If you run STARTCD.exe from the WAIK DVD, you’ll get a menu which links to the MSXML setup.

By the way, if you want to try WAIK under VMware Workstation, you can just mount the img file, you downloaded. You only have to select “All Files” for files type when you browse for the image file in the Virtual Machine settings, then just mount it like an ISO image.

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I’ll probably test VAMT soon, just to check if MAK really is an alternative to KMS activation. Its biggest advantage is that MAK-activated Vista machines don’t need to communicate anymore with Microsoft. I think KMS is easier to handle, though. But after running into problems with KMS installation, I am not so sure about it anymore.

We’re still waiting for Microsoft’s response since informing them that our KMS key didn’t work on a Windows Server 2003 SP1. It is funny to see that Microsoft staff doesn’t know much about Windows Vista Volume Activation. This is, at least, true for the Microsoft support here in Germany.

The description of this Vista Hardware Assessment tool sounds promising. Baldwin Ng, Product Manager for Microsoft Solution Accelerator team, posted a comprehensive article about it in the Windows Vista team blog. I just hope that it is more reliable than the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.

Microsoft’s deployment tools for Vista are almost complete now. The only one that is still missing is SP3 for SMS 2003 (Systems Management Server). SMS 2003 SP2 only offers very limited support for Vista. I tried the SMS SP3 Beta some days ago. So far it made a good impression on me. The only thing, I found strange, is that that the OS deployment feature pack still uses a Windows XP-based Windows PE version. I wonder if this will still be the case with the final version of SMS 2003 SP3.

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If you try to install the WAIK from the DVD, you’ll get an error message requesting for the WAIK installation CD. At first, I thought that it might have been my fault because I couldn’t believe that Microsoft would offer a 990 MB download with such an obvious bug.

But some commentators on my blog post confirmed it and one even found a solution to the problem. Thanks for that! If you copy the DVD to the hard disk and start the MSI there, the installation will run through without problems.

Now, I really wonder, how something like this can happen. Doesn’t Microsoft test their software before releasing it to the public? Of course, software can always contain bugs. But, in this case, you can’t even install the software. This can only mean that nobody tested it before they released the WAIK to the Web. It seems to me that Microsoft staff is still working under very high time pressure. I am sure, the WAIK’s release is far behind the schedule. This is probably also true for a couple of other tools related to Vista deployment (SMS 2003 SP3, KMS, VAMT, etc.).

Another thing, I find remarkable, is the fact that Microsoft removed the WAIK download without any note. If you access the WAIK download URL now you only get this:

The download you requested is unavailable. If you continue to see this message when trying to access this download, go to the “Search for a Download” area on the Download Center home page.

Doesn’t anyone have time anymore to write a message that would explain the situation? Or is it just too embarrassing?

This incident is a further hint to better wait with the Vista roll out as long as you can. At the moment, you can’t rely on Vista and its related products. People working under time pressure make mistakes.

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Sometime ago, I mentioned BDD 2007. I wrote that it included these tools, but this was not correct. The beta of BDD 2007 contained WAIK, but it is now available as a separate download. The DVD image has 992 MB and it took me almost an hour to download it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to install the WAIK.

I was able to burn the DVD and also to start the WAIK setup. At the middle of the installation procedure, I got this message: “Please insert the disk: Windows Automated Installation Kit CD“. However, the DVD was still in the drive, of course. I tried to install it on Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista. I downloaded the file again, mounted it in a VM running XP and Vista under VMware Workstation. I got the same error message.

The documentation of the WAIK is available separately. So maybe you have a look at it first before downloading this huge image. I will report about it here as soon as I get the WAIK running. If you had more success in installing it, please let me know. Somehow I think it is bug or maybe I am just missing something here.

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I’m citing from a Microsoft Newsletter:

Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 is THE best practice set of comprehensive guidance and tools from Microsoft to optimally deploy Windows VistaT and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. BDD 2007 has undergone many changes to significantly ease the deployment of Windows Vista, including new out-of-the-box imaging technologies, XML-based migration scripts, new tools for image engineering (ImageX and System Image Manager), and new unattend XML format. Another huge breakthrough with Windows Vista is Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) independence and language neutrality; this means that organizations can get to a minimal number of standard images across multiple hardware types.

As with any advancement in technologies, getting the maximum benefit requires understanding the tools and technologies, and BDD 2007 provides the depth of guidance and tooling to make the Windows Vista and 2007 Office system deployment process predictable and scalable. BDD 2007 includes guidance based on every stakeholder role involved with desktop deployment, from business decision makers to end users. Tasks are divided into logical groupings and comprehensive job aids are included to support the entire deployment process. BDD 2007 provides the layer of project management knowledge and tool integration to make the complex desktop deployment process seamless and predictable, while reducing or eliminating deployment-related service disruptions and help desk calls. Many of the tools and guides within BDD 2007 can even be used throughout the desktop management life cycle to provision new users, maintain images, and centrally manage drivers and applications.

BDD 2007 also introduces the new Deployment Workbench, which enables users to build and manage multiple OS configurations, define network deployment points and network shares, inject drivers, attach language packs, and chain applications. It even helps generate ISO and WIM images using Windows PE that can be deployed in a networked environment or using DVDs offline. BDD 2007 also alleviates much of the scripting requirements of previous deployment practices by incorporating a stand-alone task sequencer derived from System Center Configuration Manager 2007. BDD continues to offer the flexibility for Zero Touch Installation with Systems Management Server 2003 and Lite Touch Installation with minimal infrastructure requirements.

The BDD team would like to thank all of the BDD 2007 Beta and Release Candidate Program participants. We appreciate your input throughout the process and incorporated several improvements based on your feedback. We are currently in the process of developing Windows Server “Longhorn” deployment content and tools based on BDD 2007 and encourage you to participate in the upcoming Beta program.

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They made the same mistakes like many other reviewers before them. They searched for so-called killer features, having a certain kind of “wow effect”. Since Vista doesn’t have them on the first sight, there is no need to waste resources for an early rollout.

In my view these killer features are often overestimated. The success of an operating system is usually not dependent on them. Take Apple for example. Their operating systems often are often released with some wow effects. Still their market share is more or less negligible. The success of an OS is only dependent on the sum of its features. Every person has different wants and needs. In the end, the OS that can satisfy most users, wins.

This argument applies as well to Windows XP-Vista, Office 2003-Office 2007. It is not important if the new versions have some must-have features for a couple of reviewers. What really counts is that every user could find at least one feature which might make the change worthwhile. Since there are so many new features, the probability is very high for it. Maybe, one of your users finds the new program search function useful, and another one might be happy with Aero and the next one might like one of the other 2750 new features of Vista.

Or take me as another example. My personal killer feature in Word 2007 is the revise mode (track changes). In Word 2003, you had to click on two different icons to accept a change and to jump to the next change. In Word 2007 one click is enough. This might be a completely unimportant new feature for you, but it was my reason for switching to Office 2007 earlier than planned.

The second mistake of the Becta reviewers is that they focus on mostly user related features in Vista. However, Vista’s most important new features are security and system management related . I’ve been writing about these features for sometime already (see the Related section bellow).

I want to add a note about MS Office 2007, although this might be off-topic in this blog. When it comes to the question which Office suite is the best for an educational institution, the features itself are relatively unimportant, anyway. It might true that most of our students would be able to write their papers using Writer of OpenOffice. I use it myself, often. But I would never consider deploying it instead of MS Word. Why? Some day these students want to get a job. Many of them will probably need MS Office in their workplace.

My job to make sure that our students get the best IT tools for their overall education. I shouldn’t care about anything else. So it is out of the question that we will deploy MS Office 2007 as soon as possible. Not because it has some must-have features compared to Office 2003 or OpenOffice, it’s rather because our students will have an advantage when they get used as soon as possible to the complete new user interface of Office 2007.

Via Windows Vista Blog

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First, I downloaded and installed the latest OSD Feature Pack. I didn’t encounter any problem during the installation, but afterwards, I wondered, if the new version is really installed. The old version of the OS Deployment Feature Pack was on this server before. The section for the Image Packages in the SMS Administrator Console didn’t change at all and the Add-or-Remove- Programs Panel didn’t give me any hint that I installed a new version. Even the manual is the same as before. If you search for “Vista” in it, you won’t get any hit. Somehow it seems to me that this Feature Pack is a quick-and-dirty version.

Next, I captured an image from my reference computer. For this, I created a new OS Image Capture CD. I was quite surprised that the Windows PE contained is still based on Windows XP and not Vista. Actually, it is still WinPE 2004, not even WinPE 2005. This is another hint that this Feature Pack is not ready.

This old Win PE was the reason why my first attempt failed. The network device drivers for my half year old PC were not included. WinPE 2.0, which is based on Vista, contains them already. So I had to add drivers manually and create a new Capture CD.

My second attempt worked then. The image was copied to the specified network share. The import of the WIM image in the SMS server ran thru without any problems. After configuring the Operating System Program for the deployment and updating the SMS Distribution Point I created an OS Image Installation CD with the same network card device drivers as the Capture CD.

Unfortunately, I was not able to deploy the Vista image to the PC, where I created it. The deployment wizard complained that it couldn’t find the image. I rechecked everything, and my configuration seemed to be OK. I’ve no idea why it didn’t work.

I, then, copied my WIM image to my second SMS 2003 test server which runs in a virtual environment on VMWare Workstation. I wanted to deploy this image to a virtual PC because I knew that the WinPE 1.0 works fine with VMware’s network card.

I created a virtual machine for a Windows Vista installation, but WinPE 1.0 had problems with the virtual SCSI hard disk. So I exchanged it with an IDE hard disk, et voilà, this time I was able to deploy the image. Remember, I originally created this image on a physical PC, and then deployed it to a virtual PC, which is pretty cool in my view.

Although I succeeded somehow in the end, I have doubts that this OSD Feature Pack for SMS 2003 SP2 is really ready for Windows Vista. SMS 2003 SP2 support for Vista is only half-baked and this also seems to apply to the OS Deployment Feature Pack.

The problem with these half-ready tools is that you never know if it is a bug or configuration issue when something doesn’t work. That’s why we will postpone the deployment of Windows Vista until SMS 2003 SP3 is available.

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I, mostly, agree with everything, except for the “script everything” advice. If you are working for a big company, and can concentrate on writing deployment scripts, then you might agree with this recommendation. However, if you are responsible for other areas, too, then you probably won’t have the time for writing scripts.

I, also, doubt that scripting reduces the number of mistakes, as Josh states. It is the nature of any kind of program code, to be prone to error. The less code is involved the fewer mistakes, you can make. It is one of the biggest advantages of imaging technology that you don’t need to work so much with scripts as with unattended setups.

That’s why I would replace this tip with another one: Add as much applications to your master image as you can. Software deployment is time consuming and usually error-prone. If you can’t install some applications to all of your desktops then better work with multiple images. Since you can now create images in a virtual environment, for example with VMware Workstation, it is much less time consuming than with Windows XP.

First, create an image containing the applications and settings that all your machines need. Then, you clone this image with just a mouse click to prepare those images for special purposes.We have been working with a similar technique since the first availabe imaging tools. In my view, it is much less error-prone and time consuming than any script-based deployment method. Now, with Vista’s new imaging capabilities it is even easier.

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It is interesting to note that there still is no final version of BDD 2007 available, although Vista RTM can already be downloaded for sometime. Moreover, SMS 2003 still doesn’t fully support Vista.

So, Microsoft is delivering Vista to its business customers without giving them the tools to deploy it. Maybe, it would have made more sense to release the consumer versions before Christmas and the business edition next year. Which admin will deploy a new OS with half-ready tools? Besides, the feedback of consumers could have been used to update Vista with new patches.

Via Arlindo’s Blog

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The first major problem, I encountered, is that Client Push Installation of the Advanced SMS client isn’t possible. The probable reason is the failure of CCR (Client Configuration Request).

However, it is possible to install the SMS client manually, by starting the setup on the share (SMSclient) on an SMS server. In my test, this worked perfectly fine. However, managing Vista with SMS 2003 SP2 only worked partly.

Software distribution, worked without major problems. I was able to distribute an MSI package containing Firefox (just for the fun of it) as an attended installation, and as an unattended installation.

I, then, tried several remote management tools; some worked, some didn’t. These tools had no problems with Vista: Resource Explorer, Windows Diagnostics, Performance Monitor, and Remote Desktop. These tools didn’t work: Event Viewer and Remote Assistance. Some of these Windows tools started by the SMS are incompatible with Vista. The Event Viewer of Vista is quite different to the that of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

Shitanshu wrote that SP2 doesn’t support Hardware Inventory for Vista, so I didn’t try it. He has further information regarding the compatibility of SMS 2003 SP2 with Vista and Longhorn Server.

I, also, didn’t test the distribution of Software Updates since we used WSUS for that. I wouldn’t risk that with SMS 2003 SP2, anyway. My overall impression is that it is better to wait for SP3 before using SMS 2003 with Vista in a productive environment.

The only exception could be the OS deployment feature pack. We are currently using it to deploy Windows XP and are quite satisfied with it. Technically, there shouldn’t be a big difference with Vista since they both use WIM images. I am planning to test this soon and will probably report about it here.

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However, his first pro-argument is that Vista reduces the time spent by users searching for documents. I, somehow, doubt that. I think that desktop search is generally overestimated. Everyone is just so fascinated by the success of Google. So many think that search is a killer feature for everything. How often do you search for documents on your PC? I am usually working on many documents, but I search for a document, maybe once a month. And usually, it takes me only a few minutes to find it on an XP machine.

Since I started using Vista, I spend most of my time searching for functions which were moved to a different location. In the beginning, users will spend a lot of time with Vista. That’s for sure.

In my view, his second pro-argument is much more important. Actually, it is the reason why I want to migrate to Vista as soon as possible. It is Vista’s new imaging technology. This will save us a lot of time because it enables us to use the same image on all our desktops and laptops. The other benefits Bernie mentions are quite reasonable, too: easier network access for mobile users, better OS security, better Windows Firewall, better data encryption for laptop users (Bitlocker), better desktop management (Group Policy for example), no need for third party imaging tools anymore, and energy savings.

An important argument against the upgrade to Vista is the migration costs, of course. Aside from the cost of the OS, you have to consider costs for application and compatibility testing, deployment, and training. The latter is, probably, the most expensive one. Vista has really many surprises in store for users and system administrators, alike.

But the main argument against a migration to Vista now is compatibility, that’s my opinion. Microsoft never released an OS before being that much incompatible with its predecessor. It will take a quite sometime until most software and hardware vendors will have their products ready for Vista. I am sure that there are tons of Windows applications which will never run on Vista. So this time, it is not because of stability issue, but of compatibility that would stop you now from adopting Microsoft’s latest OS.

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I know that many vendors of cloning tools advertise the installation performance of their products. Of course, it is better to install Windows within 15 minutes instead of an hour. However, if you’re working with unattended setups, installation time isn’t an issue since it doesn’t cost extra time for an administrator.

The real advantage of imaging in general is that is much faster to configure the desktop. You don’t have to prepare installation scripts and worry about the error-prone deployment process. All you have to do is to install the OS and all applications and then just copy the whole thing to the PC. This is much easier and therefore less time consuming.

However, the biggest advantage of Vista’s imaging technology is that it is hardware independent. I wrote an article about this recently: No more HAL-hell, the implications of Windows Vista’s hardware independent imaging technology

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Most interesting for me in BDD 2007 Beta 2 is Zero Touch Installation (ZTI). As far as I can understand Microsoft’s announcement, it is an add-on for Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003. “Zero Touch” sounds promising, although I somehow doubt that this naming is justified. We use SMS 2003 for deploying Windows XP and are quite satisfied with it, though. I’ll probably test ZTI soon and report about it here.

To download BDD 2007 Beta 2 you have to get an account at Microsoft Connect first.

This is the list of changes in the announcement for BDD 2007:

• Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) using SMS 2003 (requires OSD Update build 3726) in addition to Lite Touch Installation (LTI) when SMS 2003 is not in place.
• Windows XP desktop image creation.
• x64 hardware (running Windows XP or Windows Vista).
• BDD Workbench installation of the Windows AIK during first use.
• Windows Deployment Services images for Refresh, Replace, New, and Upgrade scenarios.
• BDD Workbench now builds the set of files needed for SMS 2003 OS Deployment Feature Pack package creation.
• Office 2007 deployment is integrated into the BDD Workbench to build the source share, create, and populate the application selection screens.
• New OS source move feature-faster than copy when adding a new OS to Workbench and the source is the same drive-primarily added to enhance demos and training.
• Application grouping with dependency checking.
• Product ID key handling for Windows XP and Windows Vista deployment scenarios.
• Removable media deploy points and better filtering to reduce media size.
• Fewer restrictions on version mixing of newer WAIK and Vista releases.
• Version checks now performed and detected issues are displayed.
• User State Migration Tool (USMT) update for Windows Vista RC1.

Via Management Solution and Arlindo Alves

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