Microsoft Makes Desktop Analytics Available Commercially

Microsoft has announced the commercial release of Desktop Analytics, a “cloud-connected service that integrates with System Center Configuration Manager.”

The software helps organizations “view into the endpoints, applications, and drivers” being managed. It also provides a way to “assess application and driver compatibility with the latest Windows feature updates and receive mitigation recommendations for known issues, as well as advanced insights for line of business apps.”

Desktop Analytics replaces Windows Analytics, which Microsoft has slated for end-of-life on January 31, 2020.

Microsoft says the commercial release of Desktop Analytics has the following new features and improvements:

“Since announcing the public preview of Desktop Analytics, we made a point to deliver new features on a regular basis. For example, in August we helped streamline the workflow by eliminating the need to manually evaluate applications (such as system components published by Microsoft) that are known to be compatible with new feature updates. Then, in September, we delivered on one of our most requested features: The ability for customers to migrate existing data from Windows Analytics Upgrade Readiness to Desktop Analytics during the onboarding process.

“In addition to these updates, the 1906 release of System Center Configuration Manager further integrated Desktop Analytics with phased deployments, which means you can automate your pilot and production deployments with the health insights from Desktop Analytics. Looking ahead, we’ll soon enable customers who have already onboarded to migrate their administrator data. And we’re constantly investing in longer-running service enhancements like performance and reliability improvements.”