Updated VM Prep Tool for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 now Available

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As you might be aware, Visual Studio 2010 RTM is now available!  In sync with this release we have updated the VM Prep Tool for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 and the updated build is now available at https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/vslabmgmt.  The following are the new capabilities available in this release:

  • New GUI interface which provides a simpler and improved experience. The UI supports the following options
    • Self Service Mode:  This mode should be used by owners/users of Lab environments to quickly install/upgrade agents on VMs that are part of their Lab environment. They will need to login to the VM as an administrator and run this tool on the VM to start off the installation process.
    • Admin Mode: This mode should be used by and Lab Administrators who are in charge of creating templates with pre-installed agents. This mode requires the tool to be run from a machine with SCVMM Administrator console installed and requires the user to be an SCVMM delegated administrator.
  • Simplified UI based experience for creating VM templates, without the need to author XML configuration files.
  • Support for upgrading Visual Studio Agents on virtual machines. The tool has been enhanced to provide support for upgrading from Beta2 or RC version to RTM version of agents.
  • The Tool now enables Remote desktop connection (RDP) on the VMs as part of the configuration process.
  • The Tool now provides an option to disable machine account passwords from expiring. This enables domain joined Lab environments to continue functioning when they are reverted to an old snapshot.

Please refer to the documentation available on the release site for details on how to setup and use the tool. The previous version of the tool, VM Prep Tool for RC, will continue to be available online (under the download tab->Releases) in case someone still requires it.