Alpesh Nakar's Blog

1. Windows Vista Step by Step Guides – The guides provide a good starting point for deployment and many of the other new features in Vista like User Account Control and Bitlocker Drive Encryption.
2. Microsoft Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment 2007 – BDD 2007 is the best practice tool for deploying Vista and Office 2007.
3. Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 (ACT 5.0) – Lifecycle Management Tool to help manage your application portfolio.
4. Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Tool – Solution Accelerator that checks machines on your network to see which ones are capable of running Vista.
5. Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) – Tool that allows IT Pro’s to centrally manage the volume activation process.
6. Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor – Tool you can run on your Windows XP machine that will let you know if it will run Vista and and potential hardware or driver issues.
7. Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) – If you are deploying Vista then the WAIK is probably one of the most important tools.
8. Key Management Service for Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Later – Designed to be used with the volume activation tool.
9. Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK 7) – Tool to help with deploying web solutions
10. The Definitive Guide to Deploying Vista – Thanks to my Canadian Colleagues there are a couple MVP’s in Canada that are releasing an e-book on this topic 1 chapter at a time. So far 3 chapters have been released and it makes for good guidance on the topic. And the fact it comes from our MVP community it’s real world information.

Enough resources to get you started eh?