The AIS user interface is composed of the following five pages, or workspaces:

• Home   The Home workspace of the Asset Inventory Service displays notifications and status, the total number of client computers participating in the inventory, a software summary that includes a quick view of software manufacturers and types, and commands for viewing and organizing the inventory data.
  
  
• Reports   The Reports workspace allows you to generate reports about software installed on client computers. You can generate reports about all the software currently installed on client computers, or about changes made to the number of installations of a program in a given period.
  
  
• Licenses   The Licenses workspace allows you to generate license statements that reconcile your organization’s Microsoft Software License Terms information with software inventory collected from your computers. After license agreements are entered into AIS, AIS retrieves the entitlement information from Microsoft Volume Licensing Services and compares the license information to your discovered Microsoft software. You can then create license statements that allow you to see your organization’s level of compliance with Microsoft Software License Terms. These statements are for your organization’s use only; Microsoft cannot view your license statements.
  
  
• Software   The Software workspace lists programs that are installed on all client computers participating in the inventory, and it allows you to sort the inventory by software publisher, title, category, or computer name. You can also search for specific software and run software reports.
  
  
• Computers   The Computers workspace lists client computers participating in the inventory, and it allows you to sort client computers by computer name, most recent user, group, most recent inventory, first discovery date, and client software version. Commands are available in the Computers workspace for retiring computers and running reports.
  
  
• Management and Support   The Management and Support workspace includes areas for downloading and deploying the AIS client software, managing user access to AIS, managing your enterprise’s account information, and finding troubleshooting and support resources. Commands are available in the Management and Support workspace for downloading client software, adding authorized users of the Web service, editing your account information, and viewing notifications about the service.
  
  

For more information about workspaces, see the following topics:

• Home Workspace
  
  
• Reports Workspace
  
  
• Licenses Workspace
  
  
• Computers Workspace
  
  
• Software Workspace
  
  
• Management and Support Workspace
  
  

For more information about AIS, including troubleshooting and support information, see Troubleshooting and Support.

The AIS client software is a small program that is installed on all client computers in your enterprise for which you want to view an inventory of installed programs.

You can install the AIS client software on any of the following Microsoft Windows operating systems.

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4 (SP4) (Subsequent service packs are also supported.)
  
  
• Windows XP Professional
  
  
• Windows Server 2003 operating systems
  
  
• Windows Server 2008
  
  
• Windows Vista Enterprise
  
  
• Windows Vista Ultimate
  
  
• Windows Vista Business
  
  

The AIS client software installation package is unique to your enterprise and contains account identifiers, so you must download it from the AIS Web site after you have logged on with properly licensed account credentials.

For more information about downloading and installing the AIS client software, see Client Deployment and Install the AIS Client Software.