By Orin Thomas
In this TechNet labcast on demand you will learn about the Deployment Workbench (also known as the Windows Vista Business Desktop Deployment Solution Accelerator), a tool that can assist your organization in deploying the Windows Vista client operating system. A labcast is a hybrid of a webcast where you watch a presentation and a virtual lab where you perform a set of exercises to learn more about a product.
This labcast begins with an overview of what the deployment workbench is and what you can accomplish with the tools that it includes. The presenter explains that the philosophy behind the deployment workbench is to make the deployment of Windows Vista as simple as possible for the IT Pro. In creating the toolkit, Microsoft has packed together all of the tools you could possibly need to smoothen the rollout of operating systems in your environment. The screen shown when you open the Deployment Workbench is displayed in the exhibit.
Through the presentation, you will learn how deployment advice and documentation has been tightly integrated into the Deployment Workbench. This documentation has been created based on a significant amount of feedback provided to Microsoft, and the presentation explains how even administrators with significant experience deploying operating systems can benefit by reading this information. The index for this documentation is shown in the exhibit.
The presentation explains the process by which you can add components to the Deployment Workbench, increasing its functionality. The exhibit displays the component area of the Deployment Workbench.
The labcast then moves on to explain setting up distribution shares, which are network points that allow you to deploy particular operating systems to clients on the network. This is also a process that you will spend a lot of time on when performing the practical exercises that accompany this presentation.
If you are looking to deploy Windows Vista in a large environment, you should know about the Deployment Workbench. One of the best introductions you can get to the Deployment Workbench is this TechNet Labcast On-Demand. You can access this TechNet Labcast On-Demand by navigating to the following website address: Deployment Workbench Overview