Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

This is for Vista Enterprise, but I am loving it.

Microsoft has been purchasing some interesting software lately, and now they are integrating it into the Desktop Optimization Pack for Vista Enterprise. Some of the features answer needs that I, and probably you too, have been thinking about.

• Microsoft SoftGrid “virtualizes” applications, meaning they can run on multiple PCs and other licensed desktops running Microsoft Windows without being locally installed. Instead, they run as individual networked services, enabling central deployment and management, minimizing compatibility problems and providing employees more ways to access applications.
• Microsoft Asset Inventory Services is designed to analyze all programs on employee PCs, and provide the most current, accurate inventory.
• Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management increases control over Group Policy Objects (GPOs) – the component rules within Windows’ administrative management system – and is intended to allow IT administrators to delegate or assign administrative control of specific tasks based on employees’ titles or roles.
• Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset makes it possible for the IT department to quickly pinpoint the causes of PC troubles, recover lost data and prevent future downtime with post-crash analysis.

You can read more about it in the Microsoft article.

Now, here is the nice thing about it. People outside Microsoft developed much of this, so it doesn’t require such an intimate knowledge of the code that other outsiders couldn’t figure it out again. Hopefully there will be some open source tools coming out to do the same things. If not open source, then at least inexpensive.