Windows Vista Hardware Assessment

Release Notes

© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Release Date: August 2007

The Windows Vista™ Hardware Assessment solution accelerator is an inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can help you effectively determine the number of computers on a network that are ready to run the Windows Vista operating system. The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment uses technologies available in Microsoft® Windows®. These technologies include Microsoft Active Directory® Domain Services, the Computer Browser service, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). It does not require the deployment of agents to perform an assessment.

Important: Installation and use of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment requires separately purchased licenses for the following software products:

• Microsoft Word 2007 or Microsoft Word 2003 SP2
• Microsoft Excel 2007 or Microsoft Excel® 2003 SP2

Table of Contents

Documentation

• About This Document
• Additional Guidance

Localization

Installation Prerequisites

Installation Notes

• Installation Process and Logging
• Upgrading from Version 1.0
• Installing the Solution Accelerator
• Uninstalling the Solution Accelerator

Known Issues

Additional Information

• Support
• Send Feedback

Terms of Use

About This Document

This document provides the prerequisite information you need to install and start using the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment. You should also use this document to understand late-breaking and known issues in this release. It is not a complete documentation set.

Additional Guidance

After you have installed the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, additional guidance is available by clicking Windows Vista Hardware Assessment on the Start menu, and then clicking Solution Help. The following guidance is available from the help guidance:

• Overview of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment.
• Checklist for using the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard.
• Comprehensive guidance for conducting an inventory and assessment.
• Guide for using the Microsoft Word document and Microsoft Excel workbook generated by the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard.

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is localized to Spanish, German, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, and Japanese. If your display language is configured to any other language then all user interfaces will display and reports will be generated in English.

The display language configured, on your computer, during installation will determine the language in which Start Menu shortcuts and directories will be created. In addition, the Getting Started Guide, Release Notes, and Solution Help are installed for the language configured during installation.

To change the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard display language and the language used for reports, change the display language on your computer to one of the supported languages. This feature is provided for users that need to generate reports in multiple languages.

Install the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment on a computer that meets the requirements specified in the following table:

• If the setup wizard is run on a computer joined to a domain and the logged on user is an account from that domain then you need to be connected to a network that can contact a domain controller on that domain before running the setup wizard. This is required so the setup wizard can verify that the credentials of the user are valid before installation begins.
• The setup wizard will detect if there is available disk space on the C:\ drive to download, extract, and install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. It is not able, at this time, to allow the user to select the drive in which to download and extract the SQL Server installation package. For this reason, if you have multiple partitions and the system partition does not have enough disk space then the setup wizard will prevent installation. To work around this issue, make sure you have up to 600 MB of disk space on the system drive.
• The setup wizard installs the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment for use only by the user that installed the application. Reports generated by the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard will always be stored in that user's My Documents (or Documents in Windows Vista) directory.
• Installation of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is not allowed on computers that have a pre-release version of Windows Vista, Microsoft Excel 2007, or Microsoft Word 2007. If a pre-release version of this software is installed then you will need to upgrade to the released version before running the setup wizard.
• In some limited scenarios, the setup wizard may fail and display an unclear error message. If this occurs, you should close all open applications and try to run the setup wizard again.
• If the setup wizard is running and you try to run another instance of the setup wizard again, the error "Application Error The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000022)" will be displayed.
• If the SQL Server 2005 core components are already installed on the computer and the SQL Server 2005 Express installation fails in the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Setup Wizard, you should uninstall the SQL Server 2005 core components and run the setup wizard again. Refer to section 2.1 of knowledgebase article KB910229 for more information.

• The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Wizard uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect data required to complete the assessment. To enable the WMI connection between the computer running the wizard and the computer being inventoried, refer to the Getting Started Guide  which is available on the Start menu after installation.
• Windows XP Home edition computers cannot be inventoried and assessed because remote WMI connections are not allowed to computers running this version of Windows XP.
• For assessments of large environments (more than 1,000 computers) we recommend using Microsoft Excel 2007. Microsoft Excel 2003 limits the number of rows in a worksheet to 65,536 rows. Some of the worksheets created during report generation may exceed the 65,536 row limitation in large environments.
• The report generation process might fail if either Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel is open while the reports are being generated. If an error occurs then you should close all instances of Microsoft Word and Excel and rerun the wizard.
• Generation of the reports may fail if all of the latest Microsoft Office 2003 software updates are not installed.

Support

For questions about how to use or install the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment solution accelerator you should review this document and the Getting Started Guide.

Support for the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is provided through Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS). Premier customers should contact Premier Support for assistance. Support offerings and regional contact information for support can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.
 

Send Feedback

To send feedback or suggestions for improving the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment, send e-mail to wvhafdbk@microsoft.com.