Technology Services

Windows^® 7 in the Real World

Sharing Knowledge From Our Deployment Experience

Experience is often the best teacher. Since completing several Windows 7 migrations, we have validated some of its benefits, navigated a few challenges and learned some valuable lessons along the way. Now that Windows^® 7 has been live for a few months, most companies are planning, testing and deploying this operating system within their organizations. As a Microsoft^® Gold Certified Partner with the Desktop Platform competency, Technisource^® has been busy deploying this product to our clients' systems. The following is a brief discussion of some of the lessons we have learned throughout this process.

Welcome Benefits

Across the board, companies are taking advantage of some of the great features Windows 7 has to offer. In concert with a live deployment, we have found the following to be most pleasing:

New deployment tools: Even if you don’t have a mature systems management tool like System Center or Altiris^®, Microsoft provides some great tools to make large-scale deployments easy to setup and maintain. The Windows Automated Installation Kit and Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 are outstanding resources for reducing the number of manual steps associated with a system migration.
Driver compatibility: The Windows 7 base installation contains a more comprehensive driver set than any previous Windows installation. While there may always be some specific systems without drivers available, we were pleasantly surprised to find this really has not been an issue in any of our deployments.
64 bit support: We found the x64 installation to be as fully stable as its x86 counterpart. By far, this is the new preferred system if your hardware can handle it.
Backward compatibility: Even for most programs designed for legacy systems as far back as Windows 98, we have found them to function just fine on a Windows 7 system. In addition, compatibility for x86 programs running on an x64 platform has greatly improved from Vista to Windows 7. However, a word of caution: no deployment should be attempted without first performing a thorough compatibility test of all applications.
Maximized user productivity: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit’s integration with Windows Deployment System and the User State Migration Tool allows for a quick build-up of a robust deployment system that can handle both bare-bones builds and seamless upgrades, including user files and settings, without any user interaction. This helps to speed up the deployment, minimizes errors, and keeps your organization productive during the migration process.

Kudos to Microsoft! We appreciate them for making the migration process as painless as possible.

Natural Challenges

As fantastic as the operating system is, nothing is perfect. Here are some of the challenges we have discovered thus far:

Compatibility issues: Despite Microsoft’s outstanding efforts around compatibility, there are still some major applications, such as Adobe CS3 and below, that were found to have issues with Windows 7 and did not function properly. These must be taken into account before a deployment can take place.
Windows XP mode: While the concept is outstanding, it is important to know that this is really a full Windows XP operating system running on a more integrated Virtual PC platform for Windows 7. The system is a full system and functions as such. This means that it must be added to the domain and be included in a patch management program just as if it were a discrete Windows XP system. This should be considered a stepping stone towards a more concrete solution, such as application virtualization. Additionally, there is unintended deployment complexity associated with Windows XP mode. Windows XP mode systems, by nature, take the option of a large deployment off the table. While this can be accomplished with certain tools, it adds a large level of complexity to the deployment. If time allows, you may be better off solving your application compatibility issues with other options, such as compatibility shims, application virtualization or just upgrading/replacing the application with a Windows 7 compatible option.
Internet Explorer 8: Compatibility issues with IE8 continue to be a hurdle for many organizations. The browser, however, is often overlooked in the testing phase. Make sure that you include IE8 in your compatibility testing phase. It is most important to validate that any enterprise applications that require browser access will continue to function properly.
Upgrade options: The way the different versions are treated can make it tricky to navigate upgrades. For example Vista Ultimate cannot be upgraded to Windows 7 Professional. It must be upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate.
License management/activation: The new MAK/KMS activations must be monitored carefully in any deployment scenario to ensure that you do not run out of licenses. While this may seem like a minor licensing issue, by default Windows 7 loads with a built-in key that cannot be activated. This means that even if your license is not put into the system, it will function for a while and then potentially shutdown if the key is not updated within a certain time period.

Conclusion:

Microsoft Windows 7 might be the most important project your organization undertakes this year. It impacts the most cost-intensive piece of your technology infrastructure and affects the most important aspect of your business—your people. While this concept may seem daunting, with some good planning and use of experienced resources, the migration process does not have to be painful. Our advice stands: review your environment, define your objectives, plan carefully, test your designs, and implement using experienced resources. Following these basic principles will help ensure that your organization will realize a successful deployment.

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