Flexera AdminStudio 10: Review by Andre Lokkers

Earlier this week, Andre Lokkers took the time to review Flexera AdmiStudio 10 and, in this, AOK by ChangeBASE.

Those Dutch speakers among us can access the full article here. For those who require a translation, Lokkers very rightly states that the Application Compatibility Pack uses AOK functionality which is fully integrated into Flexera AdminStudio 10. He notes that, with this functionality, 95% of "Amber" Windows 7 compatibility issues can be automatically fixed.

To avoid confusion, I thought I would take this opportunity to clarify the differences between the AOK functionality integrated into Flexera AdminStudio 10, which makes up the Application Compatibility Pack, and the full AOK suite by ChangeBASE.

As discussed in this AppDeploy thread;

• Application Compatibility Pack is a light edition of the Full AOK tool from ChangeBASE.
• It is limited to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and 64-bit reporting groups.
• Since AdminStudio 10 SP1, reporting is integrated.
• Application Compatibility Pack allows users to create a global assessment of all imported applications.
• It allows the testing and fixing of one application at a time.
• There is no upgrade path available to the full AOK product.
• Unlimited use and reasonable pricing achieves ROI after 35-50 applications.

In comparison, the full AOK product:

• Provides the functionality to report on all the above and also:

- Citrix XenApp, XenDesktop
- Microsoft App-V, RDS and Citrix-hosted
- VMware ThinApp
- Symantec SWV
- Office 2010 inter-compatibility
- Internet Explorer 8
- Microsoft Patch Updates

• It also provides automated fixing for Windows 7 and the virtualisation technologies.
• Testing and fixing can be done in bulk – you can test or fix an entire estate at the click of a button.
• In addition, you can write your own checks and fixes to comply with your organisation’s Best Practices.
• The full AOK product also includes AOK VReady-It, which convert native MSIs into virtual formats for deployment with App-V and SWV, with Thin-App and XenApp functionality coming soon.

As you can see, the basic difference from the point of the user is the level of functionality. If you wish to test for Windows 7/ 64-bit and Server 2008 only, for a smaller estate, you may wish to consider Admin Studio Application Compatibility Pack.

For larger projects and application estates, or if you are looking at virtualisation, Office 2010, or further reducing your Windows 7 migration risk by checking your web-based applications for browser compatibility (as IE8 is embedded into Windows 7), you should consider the full AOK product suite.