Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit is an agentless inventory tool that scans the network environment using WMI mechanisms, Remote Registry, Active Directory and SNMP services, identifies found computers and servers, evaluates their parameters and assesses whether it is possible to install new versions of Microsoft software - Vista, Windows Server 2008, Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization..... The evaluation even takes into account the availability of drivers, and the result of the analysis may include recommendations for necessary hardware updates. The new edition also assesses the possibility of consolidating physical machines with the help of virtualization.