Windows® Assessment Services and Windows® Assessment Services - Client (Windows ASC) are available in the Windows® Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK). You can install or download the Windows ADK and choose which features that you want to install.

You must install Windows Assessment Services on a server computer, which also installs Windows ASC on the server. You can also install a stand-alone version of Windows ASC on a client computer and use it to connect to the Windows Assessment Services on the server to initialize Windows Assessment Services.

The Windows Assessment Services server supports Preboot Execution Environment (PXE)–based image deployment by using Windows Deployment Services. The Windows Assessment Services server also maintains your inventory database, job shares, result shares, and various scripts that are used for automation. You can use Windows ASC to manage assets that are in inventory, set up and schedule projects and jobs, monitor progress, and view results.

In this topic:

System Requirements

Server Computer

To install Windows Assessment Services, your server must meet these requirements:

  • Windows Server® 2012 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, Standard, or Datacenter edition.

    Note
    When you install Windows Assessment Services on a server, Windows Deployment Services is enabled with these benefits and limitations:
    • Windows Deployment Services is configured to automate PXE-based computer discovery and image deployment. When deploying an image to test computers, you must use a Windows image (.wim) file that has been generalized using the sysprep tool.

    • Windows Assessment Services on Windows Server 2012 uses Windows Deployment Services Dynamic Driver Provisioning (DDP) to inject matching Plug and Play drivers during image deployment. Windows Assessment Services doesn't support DDP on Windows Server 2008 R2. On either server operating system, you can use DISM.exe to inject drivers into the .wim image offline before deployment.

    • If the server is a domain member, you must set the Internet Protocol security (IPsec) exclusion policy to use Windows Deployment Services to deploy image and run assessments on test computers.

    • You can skip Windows Deployment Services image deployment if the test computer already has a supported running operating system, or if it has an image that is deployed outside Windows Assessment Services.

    • Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is supported.
  • Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5 and .NET Framework 4.0

    Note
    Windows Server 2008 R2 .NET 3.5 is installed by default and .NET 4.0 is installed with the Assessment Toolkit.
    Windows Server 2012 .NET 4.0 is installed by default, and you must enable .NET 3.5 before you install Windows Assessment Services. To enable the .NET Framework 3.5, on the server, type the following from the command prompt:

      Copy Code 
    DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All
  • Network: 1-gigabyte (GB) network adapter

  • Hard disk space: 50 GB of memory per test computer.

  • Memory: 8 GB minimum, 16 GB for servers that support more than 100 test computers.

Technician’s computer

You can install Windows ASC on the server where you installed Windows Assessment Services, or you can install it on a client computer. To install Windows ASC, your computer must be running one of these operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2008 R2

  • Windows Server 2012

  • Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later

  • Windows 8

Test computers

Test computers must meet these requirements:

  • USB boot support

  • Network (PXE) boot support

  • Network adapter driver

Network infrastructure

At a minimum, your network infrastructure should meet these requirements:

  • If you are using Windows Assessment Services for deployment, all computers must be on the same subnet, or the IP address of the Windows Assessment Services server and Windows Deployment Services should be in the IP Helper address list of the switches for all the test computers.

  • A Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server must be available on the same network to assign IP addresses to test computers.

Installing Windows Assessment Services

  1. On the server computer, double-click ADKSetup.exe.

  2. Click Download to download the Windows ADK. Or, if the server can remain connected to the Internet during setup, click Install.

  3. Accept the Microsoft Software License Terms.

  4. Select the following features:

    • Deployment Tools

    • Windows Preinstallation Environment

    • Windows Assessment Services

    • Windows Performance Toolkit

  5. Click Install.

Note
An instance of Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Express is installed together with Windows Assessment Services. The name of the SQL Server instance is ADK. If a SQL Server instance named ADK already exists, you should remove or rename it before you install Windows Assessment Services. If you don’t, the existing instance is used.By default, Windows ASC is also installed together with Windows Assessment Services on the server.

Installing Windows Assessment Services - Client

  1. On the technician's computer, double-click ADKSetup.exe.

  2. Click Download to download the Windows ADK. Or, if the computer can remain connected to the Internet during setup, click Install.

  3. Select Deployment Tools, Windows Assessment Services-Client, and Windows Performance Toolkit, and then click Install.

Next Steps

Initialize the server to configure communication between Windows Assessment Services and Windows ASC computers. You can configure more than one Windows ASC computer to communicate with the Windows Assessment Services server. For more information, see Setup and Configuration.

See Also