Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

Technicians and administrators alike need tools to diagnose computer problems, centrally manage encryption and recovery keys, provide consistency in user settings, provide application co-existence and more. These are some of the topics that we will tackle in our series on MDOP.

We're here to present to you an overview of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. This is gonna be a new tech skills show for us, so that we can actually help you understand what this product is really all about, and here to help us out better is gonna be Mr Wes Bryan. Wes, who is this particular show really for, and what topics will we be covering? >> Well, this is an interesting tech skill, because one of the things you might find out there is, there is plenty of, I would say, textual information about MDOP. But one of the things it's lacking, is more video content, and it is something that, it does rear its head from time to time. So this going to be focused on anybody that wants a little bit better of an understanding of Microsoft's Enterprise suite of technologies, known as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. It helps you to manage things like the user experience. For instance, desktop applications, things like virtualization, as well as managing a lot of the features that you'll find inside of your Windows environments. Keep in mind that the viewer is gonna be introduced to, not just a single technology. I know we call this Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, but keep in mind it could also be renamed a toolkit, because it has many different applications or products, all bundled into one. For instance, user experience virtualization is gonna be one of those things that we'll be looking at, sometimes called UEV. It's a way that I can take settings, and I can virtualize them, and have those settings follow me when I go to different computers. It's a real handy tool. Things like AppV. Maybe you've heard of this. This is the Application Virtualization. I need to virtualize an application, but maybe I don't want to put it into a hypervisor, and, you know, virtualize the whole entire operating system. So this is a good way that you could take applications, and in a more modular sense, you can virtualise each individual one if you need to. Some of the other topics that we'll be looking at, is MBAM. That is, the Microsoft BitLocker, an administration and monitoring kit you can use. It's, maybe you've heard of BitLocker inside of the Windows operating system, well, BitLocker, unless you're in group policy, is kind of a decentralized type of management system, and it's usually on a computer to computer basis. But what this does, the MBAM Software, is it allows you to scale up to large enterprises, and centrally manage BitLocker keys and BitLocker encryptions that are in your Enterprise level environment. We'll look at another tool, that, one of my personal favorites in the MDOP platform, is something known as the Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit. And this is a great way that, like it says, you can diagnose different problems that happen inside of the Windows environment. So, we've got more than just that, but keep in mind that some of the topics that you can see inside of the MDOP series coming up. >> Now Wes, is there any particular exam that's associated with this? Or are we just really talking about learning the skills itself? >> I would say the latter's probably gonna be true, we're gonna be looking more at the skills that you need, and just kind of looking at the technology, not really exam-centric on this one, but I will throw a word of caution. One of the things that I've seen, and if you've taken previous Windows client certifications, MDOP sometimes does rear it's head on the exam. So, while this isn't specific to any certification, keep in mind any time you're managing a Windows 10 client operating system, if you're studying for that very certification, this can help to expand your knowledge. So, if that's something you wanna know a little bit more about, the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, stick around, cuz we got a lot more to come.