New deployment tools for Vista SP1

Now that Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Server 2008 have been released, Microsoft is releasing many updated tools to support them. I just thought you might want to know about them.

The most exciting release for me came out Monday - Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT)! It replaces the old Administration Tools Pack (AdminPak) and Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). Although the old AdminPak can still be installed from an elevated DOS prompt, GPMC was taken out of Vista by SP1 with a complete loss of that functionality. I'll be taking this for a spin as soon as I finish my current task - look forward to a real-life review shortly...

The rest of the tools are related to automating Vista deployment:

Version 936330AIK of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) was just released this month to support the new versions of Windows. As a result of this upgrade, the Business Desktop Deployment 2007 (BDD) is no longer compatible. You need to upgrade to BDD 2007 v3.2 which was released just last week. The latest version will now allow you to deploy Vista SP1 in your organization.

But if you really want to stay current, Microsoft is rebadging BDD by bundling it in the new Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 which was also made available last week. They are leaving behind the BDD name because the tool now handles Windows Server 2008 deployment in addition to desktop deployment. Here is a nice blurb about it from the Windows Vista Team Blog.