My personal experience with Windows 7 has to this point been a good one. Our rollout is still being scheduled for the rest of the general population, but I’ve been working with Windows 7 for nearly 4 months now without any issues. I’m convinced this is because of a proper amount preparation before my abandonment of Windows XP, even with the added complication of focusing on a migration to 64bit computing as well.
Start with the Outlet.
When I was just a regular PC technician I was taught a troubleshooting technique that rarely failed me, “Start with the Outlet”. That is to say, whenever there is a problem follow the flow of electricity through the outlet into the power cord, to the power supply, to the motherboard, and so on. I took a very similar approach before switching out to Windows 7.
The first step was to make sure that I had the appropriate hardware to perform the migration: I made sure to take an inventory of the computer models that I had in use in my organization. This was made a little bit easier on me in that a few years ago we began a program that was focused on getting all of the organization’s computers into a 4 year refresh cycle. Because of this we had no more than two models of desktops and two models of laptops being placed in one particular year. This left us with approximately 8 models of computers in use in our organization.
Researching model compatibility and driver availability turned out to be a much more intensive process than I initially anticipated. That probably shouldn’t be as big an issue for most organizations unless they are also switching from Windows XP 32bit to Windows 7 64bit.
When we were finished there was definite line in the sand of workstations that would not support a 64bit Windows 7 operating system. Tracing the date it left us half of next year’s “refresh” as our problem point. It was decided that these workstations would be left with Windows XP until a time when they would be replaced with Windows 7 workstations.
Have a Good Base
The next important step was to make sure we had a firm base image. IT spent three months in the early stages evaluating Windows 7 and deciding what items would need to be changed or modified to fit our needs. If you don’t have a good consistent base then obviously anything you build off of that is going to have a bit of an issue being stable.
Items of particular concern for us included several items. The Desktop search settings and our impending enterprise search initiative were very important to consider when building our image and your organization will also want to consider this and any load it may have on network drives or exchange servers that users may attempt to index. Obviously User Access Control was another big one. There were a few discussions on the best way to address this. Eventually we chose to disable it entirely. We eventually came to the conclusion that, though well intentioned, UAC only taught end users that if they clicked yes the box went away and the stuff they wanted to do worked.
It was also during this step that we made sure we had our Key Management Server up and working. During the initial build of workstations we noticed that KMS didn’t activate our workstations right away. This is something you shouldn’t panic about. Once you have 25 workstations KMS should take over and you shouldn’t have any issues from there.
Update your Support Structure
After making sure we had a good base we knew we’d need to have all of our support tools in place. Some items you’ll want to make sure you have in place will include all your critical infrastructure services. A short list of what we had to update or change the configuration of included; Altiris, Windows Security Update Server, Microsoft Forefront, our Cisco VPN client, some wireless configuration tools, and our workstation Group Policy objects.
It was also during this step that we made sure all imaging technologies were up to date and working. There are a number of options available, especially when going to Windows 7. I’ll not compare all of them, because for your environment you may need to make your own decisions on what works best, what you have in place, and what is available. Some suggestions to look at would obviously include Microsoft’s Deployment Toolkit and the Altiris Deployment Server offered by Symantec (what we ultimately chose).
Test, Test, and Test
After making sure we had a good stable base and supporting infrastructure we began to test the applications on top of the updated operating system. Part of this step was obviously included in updating our support structure, but this is really the expanded section of it. Being part of an Engineering Firm make this difficult to truly complete. In our 3500 computer environment we have over 10,000 documented software titles that need to be tested and evaluated for everything to be properly checked off the list.
How do you eat that elephant? Well just like anything else you just do it one bite at a time. We started by checking off the core stuff like Office and our primary engineering applications (AutoCAD and Micro Station). From there we simply went down the line checking off the biggest lists of applications.
Have a Plan B That Isn’t “Run Away”
When it comes to migrations I’m very stubborn. I don’t like to roll back. It’s a fault that I readily admit to every day. I can’t stand it when I do a bunch of work and have nothing to show for it. So I always plan to fall back on other technology if there is a problem.
Thankfully in today’s day and age there are a number of options for that. For our environment we knew we’d be able to fall back on our VMware View installation. There are a number of other options, but having one in your back pocket is often enough that people will accept the change.
Just Jump!
This part is sometimes the scariest one. Eventually all the planning and testing in the world isn’t going save you. You’ll just have to trust you’ve made the appropriate choices and done all your research. A good timeline is important for ongoing rollouts, but everyone needs to have someone to go first. Giving yourself and members of your support staff a Windows 7 workstation as their ONLY computer can be a great way to make sure that those little bugs picked up on.