Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit for Windows 7

Microsoft is introducing a similar strategy for Windows 7 as it did for Windows Vista when it comes down to offering customers resources designed to streamline the adoption process. With the next iteration of the Windows client having debuted into public Beta at the beginning of January 2009, the Redmond company has adapted a solution accelerator initially offered for Windows Vista to Windows 7. With the February 2009 release of Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP), the toolkit is designed to integrate seamlessly with both Windows 7 Beta client and Windows 7 Server Beta (Windows Server 2008 R2).

“Our team have just released an update to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 3.2 for Windows migration that is now available to install on a machine with Windows 7 Beta. Check out the MAP Toolkit now and start planning your desktop deployment projects,” revealed Baldwin Ng, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators, earlier this week. However, Ng pointed out that while the latest release of MAP 3.2 does indeed play nice with both Windows 7 client Beta and Windows Server 2008 R2, the solution accelerator is not designed to assess infrastructures for compatibility, readiness and hardware resources necessary to run the next version of the Windows operating system.

“We’ll add Windows 7 hardware assessment capabilities soon, stay tuned for our MAP Toolkit 4.0 Beta Program in the upcoming months,” Ng added. At this point in time, MAP 3.2 is only capable of generating evaluating resources available for the uptake of Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Virtual Server 2005 R2, SQL Server 2008 and Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 (formerly SoftGrid), Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Online Services, Forefront/NAP.

As far as operating systems are concerned, “MAP can be used to inventory and assess the following operating system versions, regardless of whether they are 32-bit or 64-bit: Windows Vista including SP1, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Professional with SP 2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server. Note that the Home versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista do not have WMI enabled and will generally not be inventoried by the MAP tool,” Ng added.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit is available for download x64 or x86.