Tools to aid Vista deployment for corporations
Microsoft wants nothing more than every company on the surface of this planet to use and deploy Vista. As we reported earlier things are looking up as Continental airlines may deploy up to 10,000 copies. To ease the Vista growing pains, Microsoft has released some new configuration and trial tools to allow companies to test drive features or even Vista itself without actually installing it.
Computer World has an in-depth discussion of both tools. The first tool is called the Data Encryption toolkit for Mobile PCs. This allows administrators to configure the Bitlocker encryption feature of Vista and makes it even harder for users of the computer to change policies.
The second tool is a Virtual Hard Drive Vista test drive. This allows Vista to be installed and tested for a 30-day evaluation period within a virtual environment to see how the new operating system will interact with the applications and hardware used within the company without actually installing Vista per se.
Both the Virtual Test Drive tool and the Data Encryption toolkit are available for download from Microsoft, note that you will need a Windows Live ID and registration is required and there does not appear to be a fee for either tool but I couldn’t swear to that, I did not get that far.
Even with these tools available, a good deal of companies are not yet prepared to bite the Vista bullet, those that do want to adopt it will be deploying it within 12 to 18 months and yet others say they will never accept Vista. Those that don’t want anything to do with Vista are looking at switching to Linux or even Mac.
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