In mid February 2007 Microsoft made available for download the final version of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 1.0. Since then the company has been hammering away at the network-wide assessment tool for Windows Vista and produced the first milestone on the road to version 2.0. Baldwin Ng, Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Solution Accelerators revealed that Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Public Beta is now up for grabs.

"The Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team is happy to announce the release of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Public Beta. Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is an automated software tool that helps business customers and consultants make informed decisions about desktop deployment and migration to Windows Vista. Specifically, this tool provides users a very quick way to inventory and assess PCs network-wide for their hardware and device readiness. Through auto-generated readiness reports, organizations can more quickly identify computers that can migrate to Windows Vista "as is" without any hardware upgrades and others with recommended hardware upgrades," Baldwin explained.

The Hardware Assessment tool for Windows Vista brings to the table agent-less and network-wide analysis capabilities based on three pillars. Version 2.0 will permit users to create a customized inventory. In accordance with the settings of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Public Beta, the tool can evaluate only specific machines in delimitations by organizational units within an Active Directory domain. The tools also support Flat-File import of computers and in addition to Windows Vista it will also asses compatibility with the Microsoft office 2007 System.

Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 now supports inventories of networks of no more than 10,000 computers per domain/workgroup in a single scan. You will be able to download Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.0 Public Beta on Microsoft Connect, but you will need Live ID or Passport credentials and register for the beta program.