Application Compatibility Tools

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Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0
Compatibility Administrator
Windows Vista Hardware Assessment
Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0

The Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0 helps customers understand their application compatibility situation by identifying which applications are compatible with the Microsoft® Windows Vista® operating system and which require further testing. ACT helps customers lower their costs for application compatibility testing, prioritize their applications, and deploy Windows Vista more quickly.

With it, you can:

  • Analyze your portfolio of applications, Web sites, and computers.
  • Evaluate operating system deployments, the impact of operating system updates, and your compatibility with Web sites.
  • Centrally manage compatibility evaluators and configuration settings.
  • Rationalize and organize applications, Web sites, and computers.
  • Prioritize application compatibility efforts with filtered reporting.
  • Add and manage issues and solutions for your enterprise-computing environment.
  • Deploy automated mitigations to known compatibility issues.
  • Send and receive compatibility information from the Microsoft Compatibility Exchange.

Learn more about ACT 5.0
Download ACT 5.0

 

Compatibility Administrator

ACT 5.0 also includes the Compatibility Administrator tool, which enables you to resolve many of your potential application compatibility issues before deploying a new version of Windows to your organization.

The Compatibility Administrator assists you by:

  • Providing individual compatibility fixes and compatibility modes to resolve specific compatibility issues.
  • Enabling you to create custom compatibility fixes, compatibility modes, and compatibility databases.
  • Providing a query tool that enables you to search for installed fixes on your local computers.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Tool (formerly Windows Vista Hardware Assessment)

This assessment and inventory tool is designed to quickly assess an organization's hardware and device readiness for Windows Vista migration. The tool connects remotely to existing desktops without installation of any agents and generates hardware and device compatibility reports and proposals.

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Tool.

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor

Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor is a downloadable Web application that helps Windows XP users identify which edition of Windows Vista meets their needs, whether their PCs are ready for an upgrade to Windows Vista, and which features of Windows Vista will be able to run on their PCs. The end result is a report that explains which edition of Windows Vista to buy and provides suggestions about what, if any, hardware updates may be necessary to install and run the appropriate edition and features of Windows Vista.  Upgrade Advisor runs on the individual PC; for network assessments ACT 5.0 should be deployed.