Vista System Health Report

Nov 19 2008   5:59PM GMT

Exam 70-624 TS: Deploying and Maintaining Windows Vista Client and 2007 Microsoft Office System Desktops

Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops, Enterprise desktop, Group Policy Objects, Windows Vista, MCSA, MCTS, Vista Upgrade Advisor, Windows Vista troubleshooting, Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, Windows Update, Windows Vista SP1, Vista System Health Report, Vista application compatibility, Vista ACT, Vista ACT resources, MS Exam 70-623, 70-624, MS Exam 74-134

Another doozy of a title, this exam is likely to appeal to IT professionals who work with Vista in all situations (SOHO, SMB, tech support, enterprise, and so forth) and of all stripes (help desk, tech support, IT administration, and so on). As with other exams in the 70-620 through 70-625 Vista sequence, this one’s Preparation Guide follows the old-style format. In short, anybody who deploys or maintains Windows Vista desktops is likely to benefit from studying for and taking this exam, even though its official target audience is candidates with “a minimum of one year of experience managing day-to-day issues with desktop deployments.”

There’s one more incredibly useful nugget inside this prep guide. It reads: “This exam is the Windows Vista version of Exam 74-134: Pre-Installing Microsoft Products and Technologies, [and is] focused on the OEM Pre-Installation Kit (OPK).” Why so? Because you’ll find some great links to study materials for the other exam on its prep page (linked at the head of this paragraph) that don’t appear on the 70-624 exam page.

The prep tools and resources that appear on the 70-624 page include the following:

• Classroom training: Course 5105: Deploying Windows Vista Business Desktops and Course 5058: Deploying Microsoft Office 2007 Professional.
• e-learning offerings: Collection 5058: Deploying 2007 Microsoft Office System Client Products.

The lack of books and complete e-learning coverage explains nicely why the 74-134 page is referenced, and also why it’s a good idea to dig up its study material citations to help you get ready for this exam as well.

Skills measured on the 70-624 exam break down as follows:

• Deploying 2007 MS Office System:
  Configure MS Office settings & components, install 2007 MS Office system, and migrate from earlier MS Office versions.
• Configuring Windows Vista Automated Installation Settings:
  Configure Vista automated install settings, manage Windows Vista catalogs, add device drivers to Vista installs, manage Windows components, and configure and manipulate Windows Imaging Format (WIM) images.
• Deploying Windows Vista:
  Deploy Vista using Lite Touch Installation (LTI) and Zero Touch Installation (ZTI), customize Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE), and troubleshoot deployment issues.
• Using Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Workbench:
  Install BDD, configure distribution point in BDD 2007 Workbench, create a reference computer image, manage XML files in BDD Workbench, automate 2007 MS Office system installation, and customize and maintain Windows PE in BDD Workbench.
• Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT):
  Install and configure ACT 5, deploy ACT 5 agents, report application compatibility, and fix compatibility issues.
• Managing User State Migration:
  Upgrade user state from XP to Vista, automate user state migration, manage Vista deployments using SMS 2003, determine Operating System Deployment (OSD) prerequisites, install and configure SMS 2003 OSD Feature Pack, and troubleshoot and plan for user state migrations.

There’s a lot more to this exam than the title conveys, especially where automation, deployment, and user state migration are concerned. This one’s going to take some work and experience to get through, so be prepared to invest substantial time and effort in preparing, unless you work with these tools and technologies on a daily basis. My guess is that those conditions hold only in enterprises or outside services companies big or specialized enough to have their own Vista deployment teams. How many of those can there be? The total count for MCTS: Business Desktop Deployment certified professionals as of 10/27/08 is 4,868, so the answer could be: “More than you think!”

Oct 13 2008   3:29PM GMT

Generate a Vista System Health Report

Posted by: Ed Tittel
Desktops, Enterprise desktop, Windows Vista, Windows Vista troubleshooting, Windows Vista SP1, Vista System Health Report, Vista System Reliability Monitor, Spyware Doctor

I recently stumbled across a hitherto unknown gem inside Windows Vista–to me, anyway. It’s called a “System Health Report” and it provides a pretty comprehensive view of a Vista system’s state, status, and current behavior. To my surprise it comes from the same facilities that support the System Reliability Monitor (see my blog “My Love-Hate Relationship with System Reliability Monitor” for my take on this built-in Vista facility) and generates a report on all major components and subsystems on the Vista PC it targets.

Here’s how to launch this facility:

• Click Start, type Performance into the Vista search box, then select Performance Information and Tools.
• Click Advanced Tools in the left panel.
• Click Generate a system health report.

At first, you’ll see a display that lets you know the program is gathering data

Once the data-gathering phase is complete, you’ll see an overview report appear instead. It offers details in a number of areas, including Diagnostic Results, Software and Hardware Configuration, and details for CPU, Network, Disk, and Memory, as well as Report Statistics. The overview report looks pretty innocuous, but you can click the arrow to the right that’s associated with any item on the left to start digging into the details.

Here, you can see the various warnings that my Vista machine collected as I ran this report. These reflect my having turned User Account Control (UAC) off on this machine, and the interesting failure of Spyware Doctor with Antivirus to register either of those components–antivirus and antispyware, that is–with the Microsoft Security Center on this machine. In this case the former is a deliberate choice, and the latter a known issue (though Spyware Doctor maintains updated signatures and software as it’s supposed to, so there’s no real cause for concern here).

If you manage a large number of Vista desktops, you may be interested to learn that this facility dovetails with products that include System Management Server or System Center Essentials to enable daily health reports to be e-mailed from each machine to a mailbox for subsequent analysis and review.

For some more good information on working with this facility in Vista, see “Scenario 6: View a diagnosis report” in the Windows Vista Performance and Reliability Monitoring Step-by-Step Guide on TechNet.