A recent Windows for Your Business blog post promotes the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2011 R2 as a resource to help organizations make the switch to Windows 7 before XP dies.

By 2014, I would hope that XP will be a fading memory, and that we’ll be pushing organizations to switch from Windows 7 or Windows 8 and make the switch to WIndows 9–but I guess the tenacity of Windows XP to still be a pervasive OS today suggests not.

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.

Unfortunately, racing out of the gate is not the same thing as winning the race–and it is highly unlikely that Firefox will win the race. Firefox 3 set launch day download records as well, but that hasn’t stopped the Mozilla browser from steadily declining in market share.

Microsoft’s latest browser–Internet Explorer 9–is only available for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Windows XP, which is still the number one operating system with more market share than Windows 7 and Windows Vista combined, is left with Internet Explorer 8, and rival browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera. It should be a prime opportunity for Mozilla to capture significant market share.

However, Firefox has already been available for Windows XP for years. It didn’t stop IE8 from becoming the leading browser version with more than a third of the overall market, and double the second place Firefox 3.6. If every Firefox 3.6 user makes the switch to Firefox 4, the new Mozilla browser will quickly grab market share, but primarily at the expense of previous Firefox releases, resulting in little change to the overall market share for Firefox as a whole.

As Windows XP users transition to become Windows 7 users, though, most of them will stick with the Microsoft browser they are already familiar with and invested in–and embrace the additional functionality and integration that the Internet Explorer 9 provides with the Windows 7 OS. Those Windows XP / IE8 numbers will transition to Windows 7 / IE9 market share.

There is certainly more parity in the browser market today. The days of Microsoft’s 90 percent market share and virtual monopoly are gone. Firefox has a comfortable market share, and Chrome is on the rise. But, downloads don’t equal usage, and launch day spikes don’t equal market share–so we’ll have to take a look at the usage stats a few months from now and see how things are trending.

It seems silly to me to talk about a vaporware product missing a rumored deadline as “delayed”. Besides, Windows 7 just launched at the end of 2009. It is the fastest-selling operating system ever and has been a tremendous success, but more than a year after its launch it only has 23 percent market share–less than half the market share of the decade-old predecessor to its predecessor, Windows XP.

I realize that Microsoft has marketing and revenue motivations for wanting to crank out a new Windows OS, and that technology changes quickly and Microsoft needs to update or replace Windows 7 to adapt. Fair enough. But, in my opinion, Microsoft should not release Windows 8 until WIndows 7 has 50 percent market share, or at *least* surpasses Windows XP.

Windows 7 is a phenomenal operating system. Personally, I can’t fathom why anyone would willingly stick with Windows XP. But, the tenacious endurance of Windows XP demonstrates that users abhor change and will cling to a comfortable OS that just works. Convincing users to turn around and upgrade again from WIndows 7 to Windows 8 after only a couple years is a formidable challenge.

I look forward to Windows 8. It sounds like Microsoft has ambitious plans for the next-generation operating system. But, I don’t believe Microsoft should go out of its way to rush Windows 8 to market. Let Windows 7 simmer a while.

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.

The problem is that Windows XP still accounts for nearly three-fourths of the operating system market. Windows 7 has been a huge success, and that success will continue throughout 2010, but not all regions of the world are likely to adopt the latest and greatest flagship PC operating system from Microsoft at the same rate and that will leave some regions more vulnerable than others.

Malware developers and cyber criminals are a lazy bunch and tend to take the path of least resistance. Regions that lag in adopting Windows 7 and continue to rely on Windows XP will offer attackers pockets of easy targets.

The most affected regions for the Conficker worm were Brazil, China, Russia, India, and Vietnam. F-Secure chief research officer Mikko Hypponen says “It’s likely that XP attacks will still be around for a number of years…The easy target will be these ghettos.”

I never really had any issues with Windows Vista beyond having to struggle with printer drivers when it was first released. Personally, I think that most of the “problems” with Windows Vista are more perception than reality and that the real failure of Windows Vista is that Microsoft lost the marketing battle with Apple and other Microsoft critics.

People who have never even seen Windows Vista running will still tell me a list of the reasons why they hate it and those reasons are always just a sampling of sound bites from some “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercial Apple produced.

I liked Vista, but Windows 7 rocks. Windows 7 is no Vista with lipstick. Don’t take my word for it. Check out this blog post which lists some of the key differentiators that set Windows 7 apart from its predecessor.

That was then, this is now. When the dust settles from  the 2009 holiday season, and 2010 gets in gear, Windows 7 will be the poster child for Microsoft’s 2010. I haven’t seen any sales figure yet, but I suspect that the holidays were good for Microsoft and for PC sales. A new year will bring with it new budgets and companies will finally drop Windows XP and embrace Windows 7.

David Coursey, author of PC World’s Tech Inciter blog, also predicts a strong 2010 for Windows 7. “Windows 7 will sell many computers during 2010. The new operating system is more than just a Vista replacement; it is good enough to make a Mac user (like me) think about switching back to Windows. Most people I’ve talked to think it’s Microsoft’s best OS since Windows 2000 Professional. Small business should look toward standardizing on the new OS.”

Initial reports after the launch of Windows 7 were quick to note that Windows 7 did not seem to be contributing to actual PC sales, but those numbers were largely a factor of timing. With the holidays–and Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals–right around the corner, the initial Windows 7 sales were software upgrades but those looking for new systems held out for the bargains.

Now, only a month after its official release, Windows 7 has captured as much market share as all of Mac OS X combined and retailers are beginning to report stronger PC sales. Thus far, though, Windows 7 has been eating Windows Vista market share and only nibbling at Windows XP. For Windows 7 to be a true success it has to surpass Windows XP as the dominant desktop operating system.

Even with advances in security like ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) and DEP (Data Execution Prevention, the addition of BitLocker-to-Go encryption for portable USB drives, and the more secure Web browsing experience provided by Internet Explorer 8 (combined with UAC which enables Internet Explorer Protected Mode), there is still some work to be done if Microsoft is looking for ideas for Windows 8.

Security experts from nCircle and Sophos contribute their thoughts about what Windows 7 got right and what still has room for improvement–namely the Windows Firewall, XP Mode virtualization, and hiding known file extensions by default.