Seeing is believing – watch this 20 minute recorded demonstration of the AppTitude application testing and application remediation platform to learn how to accelerate your Windows 7, Microsoft App-V, Citrix XenApp, 64x, Windows Server and IE8 projects. . Video here (one-time registration required).

Just came across the Windows 7 Compatibility Search provider, allowing you to do a quick Windows 7 compatibility check for an application or hardware. Download and install the Windows 7 Compatibility Search Provider from here

If you are planning deploying Office 2010 throughout an enterprise read this.

Application Compatibility in these days is a hot topic. Watch this Demo and find out how AppTitude from AppDNA can help you to speed up your Application Compatibility analysis and remediation effort.

Watch the video here Source: BrianMadden.com

If you are in the process of deciding whether to deploy Office 2010 32-bit or 64-bit, I recommend to read through the following content. Note that Microsoft recommends installing Office 32 Bit even on Windows 7 64 bit.

TechNet – 64-bit editions of Office 2010
Understanding 64-Bit Office
Compatibility Between the 32-bit and 64-bit Versions of Office 2010
64-bit Client Installation of Microsoft Office 2010
Office Resource Kit Blog – Office 2010 64-bit editions
4SysOps – Office 2010 – 64-bit vs. 32-bit – Part 1: Installation
Microsoft Office 2010 Technology Guarantee: FAQ

Companies that are in the process of planning a Windows 7 migration, will be required to pay some attention to Internet Explorer 8 and web site compatibility. Chris Johnson aka “The App Compat Guy” put together two video’s about how to migrate from Internet Explorer 6 to 8. The videos talk about the potential challenges , testing methods, workarounds and solutions to support companies with a smooth migration.  Thrive Live! Migrating from IE6 to IE8 (Part 1 of 2) and Thrive Live! Migrating from IE6 to IE8 (Part 2 of 2)

Then for those that really want to take a deep dive, I recommend watching the IE 8 Application Compatibility webcast with demos presented by Michel Barnett. You never stop learning…..

On July 12, 2010 Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack will reach end of support, for most companies this shouldn’t come as a surprise as this has been widely communicated when Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 3. however it appears that some companies didn’t took these message too serious then, but now suddenly realize that July 12, 2010 is just a few months ahead of them.

Many people have still in memory the challenges they faced with Windows XP Service Pack 2, this because this in fact was more than what people knew as being a Service Pack. Windows XP Service Pack 2 was not just a rollup of security and product fixes, but also contained various technology updates (Network protection, Memory Protection, Web Browsing security and Computer Maintenance). In these days the famous word was Trustworthy Computing and this was what Windows XP Service Pack 2 was about. From a technical and security perspective Windows XP Service Pack 2 was definitely a big step forward, but many companies faced quite some challenges in deploying it especially with regard to application compatibility.

So now when it comes to the deployment of Windows XP Service Pack 3, many people automatically think of Service Pack 2. But as mentioned previously, Service Pack 2 was a kind of special Service Pack, this isn’t the case for Service Pack 3 which is basically a rollup of security and product fixes and contains just a few new technologies or enhancements that won’t have a big impact on the existing environment.

Here’s a short checklist for planning and deploying Windows XP Service Pack 3

1. Include Windows XP Service Pack 3 in your Software Distribution or Patch Deployment System

2. Identify Test users (Application owners, Developers, standard users) and deploy Windows XP SP3

3. Monitor the Pilot clients and track any issues

4. If all is green, start deploying Windows XP Service Pack 3 throughout the Enterprise

5. In parallel you want to update your current Windows XP Service Pack 2 based images with Service Pack 3 as well, this to prevent very long new PC installation times.

Things to consider

Microsoft did not release separate Multilanguage Packs for XP SP3, companies can continue to use the previous released MUI Pack, but there is a MUI Pack update available that provides MUI support for some of the new or updated components that come with SP3.

If you were using a single image for standard desktop/laptops and TabletPC’s then be aware of the fact that with Windows XP Service Pack 3 Microsoft has removed the possibility of using a Single Image for Windows XP Professional and TabletPC Edition.  So if a company uses TabletPC devices, they will end up creating separate images for these.

Additional Information
Lifecycle Supported Service Packs
Microsoft Support Lifecycle Blog
End of Support for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista (with no service packs installed)
What’s up with Service Pack support?
Windows XP Service Pack 3 Overview
Release Notes for Windows XP Service Pack 3

Often people think that App-V is is an Application Compatibility Solution, it’s not. Chris Jackson has written an excellent article where he explains this in detail. Read the entire article here

Looks like the statement “SMS 2003 does not support Windows 7” isn’t valid anymore. Through an internal e-mail I learned that Microsoft has released a Compatibility Pack for SMS 2003 that adds Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 as supported clients. However don’t get too excited, if you want to benefit from OS deployment features, you still need SCCM 2007. Also note that that Mainstream support for SMS 2003 ended on January 12,2010.

During an Application Compatibility webcast I attended recently the presenter mentioned the Fiddler Tool. There are many network traffic monitoring Tools out there, but if you are just after capturing HTTP traffic, this one should get your attention.

Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data

Fiddler is FREE and can be downloaded from here and some demonstration videos here

The term App-V is often being brought in conjunction with Application Compatibility as some might believe that App-V is the general purpose OS compatibility solution. The App-V team clarifies this here

Most IT pro’s probably don’t have a problem in getting access to the Windows 7 operating system installation sources because they can access them through their corporate volume license agreement and/or MSDN or TechNet subscription. But unfortunately there are still some out there who do not have such easy access to these sources.

For the use of Windows 7 on a primary device (the one that one uses on a daily basis) an official version of Windows 7 that comes either from the Corporate Volume media source or a separately acquired copy or pre-installed with a new computer must be used.

But if you need Windows 7 just for evaluation purposes Microsoft provides the following 2 options:

Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day Trial
The Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day trial program allows you to download the Windows 7 Enterprise 32 or 64 bit installation sources which can be used for evaluation purposes during 90 days. The Windows 7 Enterprise 90-day trial can be downloaded from here. Note that prior downloading the sources you must fill in a form which also includes a question about your occupation. If you select a profile that does not fit to this program, you don’t get access to the sources.

Microsoft Windows 7 90-Day Eval VHD
This is a preconfigured virtual machine set contained within the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) format. To run Windows 7 within the VHD you must have access to a system that has Microsoft Hyper-V installed. The Microsoft Windows 7 90-Day Evaluation VHD can be downloaded from here. I recommend to read the Readme prior downloading the sources.

Finally let me also mention the Windows 7 Test Drive which provides access to a Windows 7 client that runs remotely on a Microsoft hosted virtual infrastructure.

I’m just about to expand my knowledge a bit around App-V. I haven’t done any hands-on yet, because I usually first focus on gathering all the useful resources available on the net, and then start reading these. By doing so, I found these fantastic videos on The Blogcast Repository.

Deployment Scenarios with App-V 4.5
Planning Considerations before Implementing App-V 4.5
The App-V Client (part 1)
The App-V Client Part 2- Deep Dive

By the way, if you are not familiar with The Blogcast Repository but like video based trainings, have a look at the Repository, there is lots of other Microsoft related Technology training material there.

Some of you are probably involved in some sort of Windows 7 migration preparation activities and like with any operating system migration, application compatibility is one of the most important topics you will need to focus on. If you need to do a first pre-study on your application compatibility status, then I suggest you download the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals and compare the content with the applications your company or client is using, this might allow you to do a first estimate on how much effort you will need to spend on Application Compatibility related tasks.

Additional Resources:

Windows 7 Compatibility Center
TechNet Application-Compatibility-Cookbook
TechNet Application Compatibility Forum

Windows Virtual PC requires that your hardware supports hardware-assisted virtualization. There are a number of third party utilities around already, but now Microsoft released one as well. It’s called the Hardware-Assisted Virtualization Detection Tool and can be downloaded from here

If you launch the tool manually it will tell you if your system meets the requirements for running Windows Virtual PC or not, quite similar as the Securable utility I wrote about in the Detect XP Mode Support article.

But since I usually work in enterprise environments, I’m more interested in command line automation than in visual user interfaces, so let’s see what we have here.

When downloading the tool you get the havdetectiontool.exe, which is a self extracting executable. So the next step is to extract the content which we do by running the havdetectiontool.exe /x command which will prompt you for a location where to store the content. Once extracted you will see a havtoollauncher.exe and a subdirectory called Sources that contains the havtool executables for both 32 and 64 bit clients.

I was not able to find any command line options for the havtoollauncher.exe itself, so i moved on the to the 32 bit version of the havtool.exe. And yes, indeed the tool does provide command line options, Hura!

Executing the following command will parse the output into a log file:

havtool /log havresult.txt /q

Content of havresult.txt

System CPU doesn’t support Hardware Assisted Virtualization.
BIOS Vendor : Hewlett-Packard
BIOS Version : F.22    
System Manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
Final returnValue = 1

Executing the following commands will set the result into the Errorlevel variable and then create a new System Variable called HAV and sets its value with the Return code.

havtool /q
SETX /M HAV %ERRORLEVEL%

Setting a system variable is just one example, you could also write a custom registry key or log file. Once you have marked your system with the result, you can use your system management software such as SCCM 2007 to collect the data and create your custom reporting.