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- Welcome to Desktop Deployment Essentials,
our new series to help you prepare
for your shift to Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus.
In the next few minutes, I'm gonna walk you through
the first step in our recommended
Deployment Process Wheel, by covering
what you need to know about application
and hardware compatibility.
And along the way, I'm gonna show you
the tools and options you have to discover
your devices and applications,
and prepare them for deployment
to Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus.
Now, if you've been in the industry
for a while, the good news here,
is that preparing for the shift is now much easier.
You might remember from your last major desktop
deployment, the biggest hurdle to overcome
was application and hardware compatibility.
Now that, for the most part, goes away
with the majority of compatibility issues being resolved.
A few notable things made this possible.
Technologies like file and registry virtualization,
solve for DLL conflicts, it's now common practice
for applications to not require elevation of privilege,
and built in compatibility modes, and shimming
remove the problem of hard coded version checks.
This means that just about any application written
in the past 10 years will be compatible with Windows 10.
Now in the Office side, extensibility options for
com Add-in and macros, have remained more or less static,
since Office 2010.
Even Add-ins predating Office 2010
will typically work without modification.
That said, depending on the size and age
of your organization, you'll still want to
preform some level of testing validation
against hardware and software components,
as part of your desktop deployment project.
Now this is really a four step process,
starting with inventory, then prioritization,
testing, and, finally, remediating app
and hardware compatibility.
To generate an inventory of managed PCs along with apps
running on those PCs, you may currently be using things
like System Center Configuration Manager
Inventory Reporting.
With Windows 10, we introduced the new, intelligent
solution available with your Windows license,
called Windows Analytics Upgrade Readiness.
This is our recommended tool.
If you're not familiar with Windows Analytics,
it's a Cloud service that uses an agentless process
to inventory the computers, applications,
Office Add-ins across your desktop estate.
Now, it works by tapping into compatibility information
and telemetry, for both applications and drivers,
uses part of Microsoft's upgrade cycles for
hundreds of millions of consumer PCs,
and returns a detailed assessment of
driver and app compatibility issues.
Now, these are issues that might block your upgrade,
and we give you links to suggested fixes
that are known to Microsoft.
Windows Analytics can also discover
highly visited internet sites,
browser based apps, and internet locations
for compatibility testing, later.
It's also straightforward to use.
A visual workflow guides you from pilot to production
deployment, and you can even export data
from Windows Analytics to most software deployment tools,
including System Center Configuration Manager.
So there you can target PCs directly
to build collections, as those PCs
become ready for deployment.
And one more thing to note, once you've made the shift
to Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus,
the tool helps you keep track of your deployment
of semi-annual feature updates, so you can stay current.
So now with your inventory ready,
let's look at prioritizing the most common apps
and hardware used in your organization.
Perhaps the most time saving role that
Windows Analytics serves is in helping
you to quickly see what to focus on,
so you can quickly unblock as many PCs
as possible for deployment.
For example, here you'll see discovered apps listed.
You can get insights to help you prioritize,
and in most cases, you won't need to test
every app that's discovered.
For example, if one or two people have an app installed,
that app might not be worth the effort.
Or, you can decide to replace it with a more popular app,
from your inventory.
Now let's move on to testing.
In most cases, applications, and drivers, and Add-ins
inventoried will work as is.
If not, Windows Analytics will often provide you
with information on where to find updated versions,
if you need them.
And for browser-based app compatibility,
note that Microsoft Edge doesn't support
ActiveX controls, Browser Helper Objects,
VBScript of other legacy technologies.
These are all cases that Windows Analytics
also helps you identify.
And if you have websites or web apps
that still use this technology
and need to run in Internet Explorer,
you can add them to the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager,
so that you run in IE.
Additionally, for your move to Office 365 ProPlus,
you can use the Readiness Toolkit for Office,
to test Add-ins and VBA macros, which can help you
identify compatibility issues with Office.
Now, the final phase of device and app readiness
is to remediate.
Here you'll want to collect the required
software and driver packages,
and you're gonna use those packages
to supersede or update older versions of those apps
and drivers, as part of your deployment process.
As you work through the list, you'll see that
more and more PCs become ready for deployment,
meaning that both the drivers and apps
on those PCs are noted as compatible,
with the version of Windows 10 that you're targeting
for your deployment.
So that covers our four step process, and to setup
Windows Analytics to inventory and prioritize
device and app readiness
you can check out our guidance on the link shown.
And just a few tips, here.
You're gonna need to set up an Azure subscription
and include an Azure Log Analytics workspace.
Once you have a Windows Analytics
Upgrade Readiness Service running, you can roll
any internet connected Windows 7 Service Pack 1,
or newer device by aggregate policy settings.
Remember as you work through your list,
you continually phase your deployment
as more and more PCs become ready.
Now this means you can work in parallel in other steps
on the Deployment Process Wheel.
In fact, up next, we're gonna discuss deployment-related
considerations for networking and directory services.
And to learn more,
visit our Modern Desktop Deployment Center,
and keep following our
Desktop Deployment Essential Series,
here on Microsoft Mechanics.
Thanks for watching.
(gentle music)