Microsoft has updated a free tool designed to streamline the migration to the latest iteration of Windows client for end users.

At the end of the past month, the Redmond company quietly refreshed the Application Compatibility Toolkit version 5.6

“With relatively little fanfare (in other words, with no fanfare that I am aware of) we released an update to the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6,” revealed Microsoft’s Chris Jackson.

The RTM Build of Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6 was offered to users in June 2010, with the latest update set up to resolve various issues identified by Microsoft or reported through feedback.

“One of these was the fact that a piece of the StockViewer app wasn’t working, which was pointed out to me by somebody attending one of my workshops,” Jackson explained.

“It turns out that somebody had “helpfully” renamed the app in the call to launch the process, but hadn’t renamed the actual binary, which just led to a file not found. (This was in “Tools / Show me a Star”.) There are a few other bug fixes included in this release, but no new features.”

As the official label of the toolkit implies, the resource is capable of evaluating a system running an older release of Windows and assess readiness for a Windows 7 upgrade.

The toolkit is also designed to cover Windows Vista, Windows Update refreshes and Internet Explorer.

Jackson enumerated some of the additional changes in the latest release of Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6:

“•Fixes an issue where deployment status can be lost after an upgrade

•Fixes the issue where Stock Viewer’s “Show me a Star” demo does not launch

•Fixes an issue where you can see timeout errors with large databases on sync


•Removes the need for ALTER permissions on the database to sync with the web service

•Updates the help file to remove content on the Setup Analysis Tool (which we removed in the original release of ACT 5.6)

•Updates the online whitepapers to reflect changes made in the CHM.”

The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6 is available for download here.