5. Using the Application Compatibility Toolkit
Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6 is a collection of
programs that enable administrators to gather information about the
applications and devices on a network and assess their compatibility
with Windows 7 and other components. The product is available as a
free download from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=24DA89E9-B581-47B0-B45E-492DD6DA2971&displaylang=en.
You can install ACT on a Windows server or workstation, but the
toolkit requires access to a SQL Server database, where it stores its
data.
Note
USING SQL SERVER
ACT 5.6 can use SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2005 (with the
latest service pack), in either a commercial edition or the Express
edition, which is available as a free download. SQL Server 2008
Express Edition is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=01af61e6-2f63-4291-bcad-fd500f6027ff.
The ACT package includes the following components:
-
Application Compatibility Manager
-
Compatibility Administrator
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Internet Explorer Compatibility Test Tool
-
Setup Analysis Tool
-
Standard User Analyzer
These components are described in the following sections.
5.1 Application Compatibility Manager
Application Compatibility Manager, shown in Figure 6, is the
primary tool for enterprise administrators planning a large-scale
deployment. This application enables you to gather information from
your workstations and research potential compatibility issues, using
Microsoft online resources. The workflow for this process proceeds
as described in the following sections.
The collection phase requires that you use
Application Compatibility Manager to create data collection
packages (DCPs). DCPs are agents that you deploy to your
workstations as Windows Installer (MSI) files. A DCP can contain
any of the following components, called compatibility
evaluators:
-
Inventory
Collector. Gathers general information about the system and all
of the applications installed on it. It’s included in all
DCPs.
-
User Account Control
Compatibility Evaluator. Checks the workstation for compatibility issues
because of the limited access provided by User Account
Control.
-
Windows Compatibility
Evaluator. Checks the workstation for compatibility issues
because of session 0 isolation, authentication problems, and
deprecated operating system components.
-
Update Compatibility
Evaluator. Registers the effect of installing Windows updates on
the workstation.
The compatibility evaluators, running on your
workstations, compile information in log files, which they upload
to an ACT Log Processing Share. The ACT Log Processing Service
then processes the client log files and adds the information to
the ACT database. Depending on the size of the network, you can
place the Application Compatibility Manager application, the Log
Processing Share, the Log Processing Service, and the SQL Server
database on different computers, or you can run them all on the
same system.
After you have the data you collected in the ACT database,
you can begin to analyze it, a process that typically starts with
organizing the applications into categories and establishing
deployment priorities, based on your organization’s needs. You can
then compare your collected data with that in the Microsoft
Compatibility Exchange. This provides you with access to
information about compatibility issues experienced by other
people, including Microsoft testers, application developers, and
other enterprise administrators. You can then use Application
Compatibility Manager to create detailed reports containing the
data you have compiled.
With the information gathering and analysis phases
completed, you can begin the process of testing your applications
to determine whether any of the compatibility problems you have
discovered exist on your network. ACT provides a variety of tools
and documentation that you can use to construct a compatibility
lab and establish a testing regimen.
The final phase of the process, assuming that you have
identified any application compatibility issues on your network,
is to mitigate them. You do this by using the Compatibility
Administrator program to locate appropriate compatibility fixes or
compatibility modes, or even create your own fixes or
modes.
