If you're not ready for full-blown software virtualization, then you should look to a separate tool offered by Microsoft: the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT). ACT is designed to assist the identification and remediation of application compatibility issues. It does this in three ways:
- A collector package can be generated from the ACT interface to perform application inventory collections from client systems. This collector package requires administrative access rights for installation, so organizations wanting to use ACT will need to devise a method for deployment of this package if their systems are locked down.
- Once deployed, the package will run on client systems for a defined period of time. It will collect inventory information and report it back to the central ACT database. This information will include the name of the application, version number and manufacturer as well as some operational data such as whether it was used or not during the time interval you set the package to run for.
- After the information is collected, you can create shims (code snippets) to add to the application's installation logic to correct any known issues.
ACT provides a lot of information as it gathers inventory from your network. Of most value is the audit data telling you whether the application was used or not during the time period of the analysis. Many organizations find themselves in a situation where they have applications installed on systems but these applications are not used by the principal user of that system (systems are more often assigned to one single principal user). This can be caused by a number of factors, the most common being that very few organizations uninstall applications when they are no longer required.
  ACT provides a central repository of application compatibility data. (Click image to enlarge.) |
It's a common scenario: The system is built for user A who needs application X; user A moves to a new position and the PC is passed on to user B; User B needs application Y; IT deploys application Y but never takes the time to remove Application X. A Vista migration is the ideal time to reset the clock back to zero and perform a massive cleanup on all PCs. After all, why bother redeploying an application that is not used? ACT and other similar usage analysis or auditing tools can greatly help at this level.
ACT also lets you share application data with the Microsoft Compatibility Exchange, a central repository of data generated by IT pros as well as commercial application vendors. In return, you get feedback from others on the applications in your network. Of course, you choose to opt in or not as you wish, but building a community of application data is a good idea.
The problem lies with the validity of the data. Since it is shared mostly anonymously, this data can be questionable. In addition, you only get information on the applications you submit, so you can't delve into data on other applications. In addition, few organizations will choose to share data on their own internally-developed applications -- and these are often the cause of most compatibility issues.
