How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT. Upgrade Assessment Tool (UAT) helps to assess the compatibility of applications.

This tool is very useful if your organization is planning to migrate computers to Windows 7 and Windows 8. The previous version of this tool is called Application Compatibility Tool Kit Connector (ACT Connector). How UAT works in FOUR steps.

How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT
How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

1. Inventory collection package installed on each computer will get the inventory from each computer and sent it to ACT DB.

2. The Upgrade Assessment Tool connects to your ACT server to download information about application compatibility.

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3. The Upgrade Assessment Tool connects to your SCCM 2012 SP1 site DB to sync CM inventory information for Application Compatibility status for hardware devices.

4. The Upgrade Assessment Synchronization service connects to the compatibility Online service, your ACT database, and your CM DB and then synchronizes the compatibility data for use with upgrade assessment reports.

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How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

When you want to migrate a large number of workstations then you need to take the help of the Upgrade Assessment Tool and Application Compatibility Tool Kit. These tools will provide you with Device driver compatibility information for installed peripheral devices and reports that you can use to determine which device drivers must be upgraded to support the Windows operating system. Summary reports that you can use to see an enterprise-wide view of operating system upgrade readiness. Some sample reports (Windows 8 and Windows 7 Application Reports) are in the screenshot.

Prerequisite for Upgrade Assessment Tool (UAT)

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1. Site Server – System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 RTM (or Beta).

2. Client – System Center 2012 Configuration Manager RTM and above.

3. Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 6.0. (no need to install this separately on SCCM 2012 SP1 site Servers because this tool is already part of Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) for Windows® 8).

4. The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.

Following are 11 Configuration steps for Upgrade Assessment Tool

1. Launch the “Application Compatibility Manager” shortcut to configure ACT.

2. Configure Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 6.0.

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How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

3. I would like to keep my CM 2012 SP1 site server as an ACT log processing Service. An ACT Log Processing Service adds data from inventory log files and runtime analysis logs to an ACT database.

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How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT

4. Configure Your ACT Database Settings. You must have read and written permission to configure these settings.

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5. Specify the location Path and share it as ACT_6Logs. Data collected from the computers in your organization are automatically processed from this location. Note that Domain Computer writes access to this share.

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6. Starting the ACT Log Processing Service. That is it Configuration of ACT completed.

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7. From Application Compatibility Manager console –> Collect –> File –> New to create and deploy an Inventory collection package to computers to collect inventory data that will be uploaded to the ACT database.

This package should be installed on all the computers which you want to collect data. Use SCCM 2012 applications to install this package to all the systems.

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8. Start the configuration of System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. The upgrade assessment tools connect to your ACT server to download information about application compatibility.

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9. The upgrade assessment tool connects to your SCCM 2012 SP1 site DB to sync CM inventory information for application compatibility status for hardware devices.

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10. The Upgrade Assessment Synchronization service connects to the compatibility Online service, your ACT database, and your CM DB and then synchronizes the compatibility data for use with upgrade assessment reports.

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11. Schedule the Sync timings or manually sync to get the updated data.

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How to Start Working with Application Compatibility Tool ACT 1

Author

Anoop is Microsoft MVP! He is a Solution Architect in enterprise client management with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His main focus is on Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. E writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc…

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