Desktop Optimization Pack 2015 Is Mostly About Windows 10

The Desktop Optimization Pack 2015 (which Microsoft calls MDOP) has been updated to support Windows 10, improve application virtualization to help application packagers, and make it easier to use BitLocker management to deploy Windows 10 with BitLocker enabled. Rights to use MDOP are now included with Software Assurance (SA) on Windows.

Windows 10 Support and More

MDOP is a set of six PC virtualization and management utilities that is available to organizations on a subscription basis through SA. (See the sidebar “Desktop Optimization Pack Components“.)

The newest version, MDOP 2015, was released in Aug. 2015. Five of the six components now support Windows 10 and received changes:

Application Virtualization (App-V) 5.1 includes an improved HTML 5 and JavaScript management console (which no longer requires Silverlight), and several improvements were made to the sequencer and packaging tools (such as improvements to the packaging menu options and importing and exporting a package manifest file) to make deploying applications faster and easier. App-V 5.1 also includes better handling of hard-coded drives in App-V 4.6 packages so that conversion to App-V 5.1 is easier. (App-V 4.6 left Mainstream support in July 2015.)