Previously in this blog, we have described how Microsoft® Application Virtualisation (App-V) and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V) can not only help streamline the deployment of the Windows® 7 operating system but also help simplify the maintenance of the desktop environment after deployment.
MDOP is more than just App-V and MED-V, however. Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) and the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT)—also part of MDOP—are included also.
Advanced Group Policy Management
Most likely, you’ll be working with Group Policy after deploying Windows 7. Why not use the opportunity to take control of your organisation’s GPOs by using AGPM?
All IT departments are aware of Group Policy, but if you’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7, you might not know how far along it’s come and how great a tool it can be for managing your environment. By using Group Policy, you can define settings for Windows to enforce. Of course, most IT departments think of security settings when they think of Group Policy, and Group Policy certainly gives you a lot of flexibility and control of those settings, too.
On its own, Group Policy is an excellent infrastructure for managing your environment, but Group Policy doesn’t provide many features for managing itself. It doesn’t provide a role-based workflow. That is, Group Policy doesn’t have a formal, built-in edit, review, approval, and deployment process.
AGPM adds the missing role-based delegation to Group Policy. You can delegate reviewer, editor, and approver roles per domain or per GPO. Additionally, AGPM gives you a workflow to manage the creation, editing, and deployment of GPOs in production. You can even edit and test GPOs offline, in a test lab, then easily move those GPOs into production and deploy them.
Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset
Throughout the development of Windows 7, Microsoft focused closely on the fundamentals. As a result, Windows 7 is a very stable and reliable operating system, but even the most stable operating systems have issues from time to time. During deployment, you can use DaRT to troubleshoot computers that won’t start. After deployment, you can use DaRT for additional troubleshooting, as necessary.
Troubleshooting computers that fail to start isn’t DaRT’s only capability. DaRt includes a number of tools that are useful when you want to work offline. For example, you can use DaRT to scan a computer for malware, recover deleted files, or disable unwanted services. Suppose a user has forgotten the password for a local account. You can use DaRT to reset that password.