With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 now available to the general public, Microsoft has made available for download it’s free toolkit designed to streamline and automate the deployment of both Desktop and Server operating systems.

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008 is being offered as the evolution of the Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007 and is set up to support Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate (32 and 64 bit) RTM and SP1, Office Professional, Professional Plus, Enterprise, and Ultimate 2007, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2 (32 and 64 bit) and Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (32 and 64 bit) or Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. As you can see, support for the upcoming Windows XP SP3 has not been added at this point.

In a recent post on the Vista Team Blog Jeremy Chapman stated: “if you are planning to deploy Windows Server 2008 with Windows Vista concurrently, there are major advantages to using MDT. Check out Continental Airlines, who rolled out both Windows Server and Windows Vista. The ability to build images and deploy desktops and servers (including Windows Server 2008), was actually a key driver for our name change from BDD”.

For more information on MDT 2008 visit the Microsoft TechNet Website or download the toolkit From Here

.