A Windows For Your Business blog post explains, “everyone at the national office and 100 percent of supported food banks are enjoying Windows 7. Feeding America couldn’t be happier with the results – from IT’s ease of adding peripheral devices, to 85 percent reduction in service calls reporting errors, to employees’ overwhelmingly positive responses to Windows 7 features like Snap, Search and the Snipping Tool.”

Last year I got to follow two other organizations as they went through the process of switching to Windows 7. Cupcake Royale and Balin Accountancy were the subject of a pilot experiment conducted by Microsoft and Dell to demonstrate the value of migrating to Windows 7.

If you haven’t yet switched to Windows 7, take a look at these success stories and explore whether your organization should take the plunge. If your organization has migrated to Windows 7, comment here or email me and let me know what prompted the switch, how smoothly the transition went, and your thoughts on how things are now compared with the platform you were using previously.

Thankfully, Microsoft has a free tool that can simplify the planning and preparation process and make the migration to Windows 7 much more efficient–the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP). Microsoft recently launched MAP 5.5, which is described as follows in the Microsoft overview of the tool:

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit (MAP) is an agentless, automated, multi-product planning and assessment tool for quicker and easier desktop and server migrations and upgrades. MAP provides detailed readiness assessment reports and executive proposals with extensive hardware and application information, and actionable recommendations to help organizations accelerate their IT infrastructure planning process, and gather more detail on assets that reside in their current environment. MAP also provides server utilization data for Hyper-V server virtualization planning; identifying server placements, and performing virtualization candidate assessments, including ROI analysis for server consolidation with Hyper-V.

It’s free, so what have you got to lose? Take a look at MAP and see how it can help with your Windows 7 migration.

All of that is great, but what IT managers and administrators really want to know before embarking on a massive operating system refresh project is “how does it work in real life for an organization like mine?”

CXOToday(dot)com  interviewed Madhusudhan Mendu, GM-IT Initiatives for Wipro, to learn more about his experience with deploying Windows 7 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in his organization.

Mendu says “In the last two years we have made it a standard to install a minimum of 1GB RAM in all the computers. We found that Windows 7 works fine with 1GB RAM. Therefore we do not see an issue in rolling out Windows 7 in our organization.”

Read the whole interview to find out more about how Windows 7 and Exchange 2010 are working for Wipro.

This article provides a solid understanding of what Windows Easy Transfer can do, and what it can’t do, as well as a heads up on some of the caveats and pitfalls you should be aware of.

I will throw in one spoiler, though, because I think is important enough to repeat. Windows Easy Transfer will move data like–documents, photos, and music, and settings–like your preferences for configuring teh Windows desktop, but it will *not* move actual applications.

So, for example, if you have Quicken, Windows Easy Transfer will move the Quicken data files from your old operating system to your new one, but unless you actually install Quicken on the new computer it won’t know what to do with them.

Installing applications, unfortunately, is a manual process that still has to be done one program at a time. The silver lining on that cloud, though, is that it is an opportunity for you to weed out software you never really use and start with a nice clean slate.

There are a lot of reasons to stop now. Technology has moved on without you. There are advances in hardware and new devices to be had that are not going to work with Windows XP. The supply of Windows XP drivers and applications is going to dwindle quickly now that Windows 7 is here.

There are also significant advances in the operating system itself. The evolution from XP, through Vista, to Windows 7 has resulted in a more secure operating system, greater functionality, and a more intuitive and user-friendly interface.

You can do it. Take a deep breath and make the switch. You can check to see if your existing hardware will support Windows 7 and do an upgrade from XP to Windows 7. If your computer is half as old as your operating system though, I would suggest you simply buy a new computer with Windows 7 pre-installed. Face it- you’re screwing up Moore’s Law by clinging to that old hardware.

I won’t lie to you. After using the same operating system for nearly a decade you are going to have a little bit of a learning curve. I will say this though- if you invest the time to familiarize yourself with the Windows 7 interface it will pay off and you will quickly come to love Windows 7.

If you’re part of the 18.62% of users that are already running Windows Vista, making the switch to Windows 7 should be a breeze. If you are one of the nearly 3 out of 4 user’s that has clung stubbornly (and arguably wisely) to Windows XP, there is a chance your computer system is from the Clinton-era and may not cut it for Windows 7.

Thankfully, Microsoft has an app for that. The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor will scan your hardware, as well as the software you have installed and the devices attached to your system, and identify any known compatibility issues. It will also provide guidance on how to resolve identified issues, and make recommendations for what you should do before upgrading to Windows 7 in order to assure a satisfying Windows 7 upgrade experience. 

Of course, if you bought your computer system before Al Qaeda became a household word, it may be time to go ahead and buy a new PC loaded with Windows 7 instead of upgrading.

If you are still hanging on (with a ‘from my cold, dead hands’ python-style death grip) to your antiquated Windows XP system, now is the time to upgrade. The question is- can you just upgrade your operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7, or should you invest in new hardware as well (which will ostensibly come with some flavor of Windows 7 pre-loaded)?

Of course, the same question can be applied for users running Windows Vista, but the hardware question will be a much bigger deal to those running the older Windows XP.

Michael Scalisi wrote an excellent article addressing this very question. The article walks through a Q&A asking important questions like “Will I get the most out of Windows 7 on my current hardware?” and “Does it make sense to sink money into my old computer?” Check out the article and answer the questions for yourself so you can start preparing for how you will make the move to Windows 7.