ScriptLogic Aims to Ease Vista Migration

As enterprises prepare to roll out Microsoft's Vista on corporate desktops, ScriptLogic plans to be there to help reduce the cost and pain associated with migrating to the new operating system with a new release of its Desktop Authority management suite.

The Boca Raton, Fla., company, which boasts 4.7 million Windows desktops under the management of its Desktop Authority software, on April 2 will release version 7.6 of its software aimed at streamlining the migration to Vista from previous Windows operating systems - going back to Windows 95.

In an informal survey of its own customers, ScriptLogic found that 40 percent intend to deploy Vista within the next 12 months, according to John Rose, director of product management in London.

"We are planning to migrate, although I'm not sure if it will be this year," said Device Authority user Matt Johnson, systems administrator with Century Aluminum Company in Hawesville, Ky. "Since we have to comply with Sarbanes Oxley - Act - , we have to show we've tested - Vista - and know it's secure for our environment," he added.

Device Authority's reporting functions also allow administrators to determine which desktops are capable of running Vista during the planning stages of a migration.

Those reporting tools are key in helping IT administrators prepare for audits for Sarbanes Oxley, according to Johnson.

"The reporting features have helped us meet a lot of the - Sarb-Ox - requirements we have to give to - the auditors - ," he said.

Device Authority provides a single console to manage desktop configurations and settings across enterprise desktops.

Version 7.6 extends DA's patented Validation Logic to Vista, allowing administrators to customize Vista desktop settings, applications and security based on a variety of parameters, such as the location of the desktop, the end user's role in the organization and more.

The Validation Logic also extends user access control, desktop management, Windows firewall configuration and IP V 6 support to Vista desktops.

At the same time, ScriptLogic extended its Validation Logic to enable DA 7.6 to detect whether a desktop is running on a physical or a VMWare virtual machine and then apply the appropriate configuration.

Such support allows administrators to apply different settings to Windows sessions as appropriate for the desktop environment.

"The administrator has one console, sets up all the rules there, and we can tell whether the user is coming in on Citrix, a VMware server or an actual client desktop. We take care of the intelligence to let you know which one applies to which," said Rose.

"It's all about making it efficient for the administrator. We do the hard work to apply all the different configurations to Windows environments," he added.

ScriptLogic extended its Desktop Authority MSI Studio to Vista as well as Microsoft's Windows Installer versions 3 and 4. It exploits Vista installation features such as restart manager, user account control and enhanced logging.

The new releases are due on April 2.

Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media, Distributed by United Press International