Business Desktop Deployment

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The Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Solution Accelerator is a set of tools and documentation for automating client software upgrades to the latest versions of Windows and Office. The accelerator brings together a set of offerings that we hope will reduce the costs and risks associated with migrating large numbers of desktops and guide customers and service partners toward best practices for performing these migrations.

The BDD Tools have recently been updated to version 2.5 and can be downloaded from

Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment Standard Edition
The Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Standard Edition is best-practice guidance for desktop deployment using limited tools and requiring basic infrastructure. The Standard Edition is targeted at companies with 250 or more PCs that want to reduce deployment time and effort by increasing the level of automation. It allows administrators to deploy desktops with Lite Touch interaction at the target PCs. This solution also helps organizations to move to a managed environment with standardized desktop images.

Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment Enterprise Edition
The Solution Accelerator for Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) Enterprise Edition follows the best practices of a multinational bank with more than 15,000 employees on five continents using multiple data centers. This solution shows how both Zero Touch and Lite Touch deployments are performed in that organization. Zero Touch contains two components:

  • Zero Touch Install (ZTI) . The ZTI component makes extensive use of the Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 Operating System Deployment (OSD) Feature Pack to allow customers in large and geographically dispersed organizations to perform new machine setup and machine replacement for users to be migrated to a new machine, without having to touch the target box.
  • Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) . The ZTP component allows businesses to move to a managed, self-service provisioning portal that allows delegates to perform common provisioning tasks, such as password resets, e-mail provisioning, and elective application installation. ZTP requires the use of SMS 2003. The Enterprise Edition provides complete guidance for ZTP using Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2004. ZTP provides a base to reliably provision enterprise or hosted commercial services and applications, resulting in reduced administrator intervention during the provisioning phase.

There’s some great information around desktop deployment on the Technet pages which also includes some details around preparing for Windows Vista.

If you’re a partner in the UK and are interested in attending training sessions on Business Desktop Deployment then please drop me an email.