You can download the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) from the Microsoft download site HERE
ACT requires access to a SQL server as this is where it stores the processed collector information.
Once you have ACT Downloaded you can install it on a machine or Virtual Machine, whichever you may please. Run the “Application Compatibility Toolkit.msi”. Accept all defaults.
Launch the Application Compatibility Manager from Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 -> Application Compatibility Manager. Follow these steps to configure ACT:
Click “Next”
Leave default option “Enterprise Configuration”
Enter SQL server name in the SQL Server field (example shown is a locally installed SQL express server). Type in a name for your ACT database in the Database field (e.g. ACT) and click “Create”. Click “Next”.
In this step you are specifying the location of the collector information. This should be a share that the ACT machine can access and that other domain computers can access (This is where the collectors deployed on user’s machines will output their data and this data is then analyzed by ACT). If you already have a share created then enter the path for it into the Path field. Click “Next”
Leave default option, “Local System”
Click “Finish”
Create Collector
Click on Collect in the bottom left hand corner
Go to File -> New. Fill in the information as seen in the screenshot below (The name is optional and in the Output Location field you should see the share name you specified earlier).
Go to File -> Save and Create Data Collection Package. Then specify the location where you want the collector saved (preferably save it to a share that all the test machines can access, so you can install it from the share instead of copying it to each individual machine).
Deploying Collector
Run the Collector installer file (Collector1.msi) on all of the test machines. You can verify that the collector has been installed by checking services and looking for the following entry: ACT Data Collector Service.
You can further verify that the collectors are working correctly by launching the Application Compatibility Manager and selecting Analyze in the bottom left hand corner. On the Analysis page you should see how many computers are being analyzed.
You can use your current Software Distribution system to deploy the collectors or you could use Group Policy
