With Microsoft Corp. due to significantly reduce support for Windows 98 and Windows NT in June, small businesses and enterprises still needing to update their desktops will have to scramble in the next few months. PC migration tool provider Miramar Systems Inc. will be there to help with new releases of both its enterprise-oriented and SMB-focused Desktop DNA migration tool kit.
The Santa Barbara, Calif., company last week launched Desktop DNA Professional 4.5, following the earlier release of the Enterprise Edition. The releases emphasize greater simplicity by guiding users through the process with a graphical wizard, and they broaden the appeal of the tools for international users.
Desktop DNA Professional, recently fashioned out of the Enterprise Edition but tailored for small and midsize businesses, expands the connectivity options for transferring settings and data from one machine to another. It comes with a migration kit that includes a high-speed Ethernet crossover cable, allowing data to be streamed directly from one machine to another. The Windows-only migration software automatically extracts the appropriate settings and files and installs them in the new system.
The new release also supports internationalization, allowing settings to be transferred from applications such as Microsoft Office running in French, German and Japanese. Desktop DNA Professional is intended for organizations with 500 or fewer machines, and Desktop DNA Enterprise Edition is for “large-scale deployments,” officials said.
Paul McLean, an IT director at a real estate development firm also in Santa Barbara, used the new version on his networked home system. “I didnt need to know anything about how it worked. The only instructions you needed were to run the setup and double click a file, and you have it on a new machine. I was impressed with how much it covered,” McLean said.