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DaRT 8.0 Beta released with Windows 8 Support

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MDOP: DaRTing to the Future - by Karri Alexion-Tiernan

 

As Microsoft continues to help businesses get the most out of their IT environment with new tools and solutions, today we’re making available the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset 8 (DaRT) beta release. The DaRT 8 beta is part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and provides businesses using Windows 8 with a way to be more proactive with their desktop repair procedures. Using DaRT 8, businesses can develop recovery and support plans that best fit their IT staffing and infrastructure requirements to save time and reduce challenges associated with troubleshooting and repairing system failures.

DaRT 8 beta is designed to help IT professionals easily recover PCs that have become unusable, rapidly diagnose probable causes of issues, and quickly repair unbootable or locked-out systems, all faster than the average time it takes to reimage the machine. DaRT, in partnership with a desktop recovery plan, can help businesses minimize downtime of their systems, keeping employees productive. New features specific to the DaRT 8 beta that can help IT include the ability to:

  • Repair PCs instead of reimaging. The DaRT 8 beta enables IT professionals to easily recover PCs that have become unusable, rapidly diagnose probable causes of issues, and quickly repair unbootable or locked-out systems, all faster than the average time it takes to reimage the machine.     
    Use scripts to enable image creation. The DaRT 8 beta has an image creation wizard that is now built on top of PowerShell cmdlets, allowing IT departments to mount, create, apply, ad dismount and burn via scripting – ultimately letting the image creation process be saved and repurposed for later use. This kind of automation should save IT departments some time.
  • Provide native support for USB media deployments. In previous versions of DaRT, additional tools were required to place DaRT images on USB drives. With DaRT 8 beta, this functionality is natively supported in the image creation wizard, minimizing the number of tools required for USB deployment.
  • Create multiple images from one device. The DaRT 8 beta is able to create both 32-bit and 64-bit images on a single machine and transfer them between. 
  • Choose the output format. Now as part of the image creation process, WIM and ISO output formats are supported in the DaRT 8 beta so that IT departments are sure the right format is an option for a broader deployment plan.

For more technical information on the DaRT 8 beta, please jump over to the Springboard Series Blog where Craig Ashley talks tech about DaRT’s new capabilities.

The DaRT 8 beta also supports some of the new hardware specifications that are rolling out through 2012, including support for GUID Partition Tables and the UEFI boot process, which are integral parts to Windows 8.

If you’re taking a look at the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, we encourage you to download the DaRT 8 beta. Since this is a beta version of the release, your feedback helps us determine the changes that should be made in the final version. To provide feedback simply submit your thoughts via the Microsoft Connect site.

Additionally, we are happy to announce the availability of the MDOP 2011 R2 Language Update. This release contains localized versions of DaRT 7.0 and Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM). Languages included in this update are: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Spanish. The MDOP 2011 R2 Language Update is available today on MSDN and TechNet and will be available to volume license customers on April 1, 2012.

For more information on MDOP, please visit www.microsoft.com/mdop.