Windows 7 Migration, Windows 8, VDI, Et Al

So, today we end our Windows 7 Trender blog after a month of posts and on Monday we return with VDI Trender, a new blog that will be about all things VDI. So, what have we learned over the past month here at Windows 7 Trender?

Windows 7 Migration – Hurry Up and Wait: The major pundits, Gartner in particular, are telling you that you better get moving on Windows 7 migration – and soon. The basic idea is that, hey, Windows 7 is pretty darn good – a lot better than Vista – so if you’re on XP, you’re going to migrate to Windows 7 anyway, so you may as well start now. Actually, the message is even more imploring than that: At some point in 2014, just around the corner, there will be no more support for XP and if you don’t begin migrating soon you could be screwed because a successful migration can take up to 18 months. We also heard the opposition point of view from Aaron Suzuki at Prowess who said, yes, migration is coming and inevitable but, really, what’s the hurry? We would like to say that the many comments on the side tipped our opinion one way or the other, but that would be somewhat disingenuous on our part since we are still a comment virgin, but quite anxious to lose our virginity (hint, hint).

Windows 7 Migration – Pitfalls and Best Practices: As far as pitfalls and best practices, there is universal agreement that whenever you do decide to do a migration you better plan it right and give yourself enough time to test. You can guarantee that some applications won’t work right, many users will be unhappy, your IT staff will be inundated with questions and no matter how much time you bake into the process, you will want more. Best migration practices include involving users; planning user account control; setting a conservative target end date, and allocating sufficient time to test and remediate browser apps.

Windows 7 and VDI: A Marriage of Convenience? Studies will tell you that Windows 7 migration will help to drive the deployment of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – and vice versa. This is where we think it makes most sense: If you are thinking of doing a Windows 7 migration and changing the majority of your desktop/client portfolio, then it certainly makes sense to look at VDI. If not now, then when?

Other Stuff: Over the course of the month we blogged about Windows 8 and what to expect; about Windows 7 Service Pack 2 and what to expect; about Windows 7 surpassing Windows XP in market share for the first time and Microsoft telling the world that, yes Windows XP is nice, but c’mon everybody, enough already! We started by talking about Windows 7 and the smartphone market and how IDC is saying that Windows 7 will reach second place in the market by 2015. And, to tell the truth, we didn’t believe the numbers then and we don’t believe them now, which is where we came in and where we are leaving. See you on Monday at our new home at VDI Trender.

Windows 7 Migration & VDI, Redux

The other day we posed the question of whether VDI would help to drive migration from XP to Windows 7. We didn’t get any answers, so we figured we’d do a little more research ourselves. Here’s some of the stuff we came up with. First of all, did you know that there’s research out there that states that 90 percent of IT managers in medium and large businesses say they are considering or implementing at least one form of client virtualization? This was based on a survey conducted last year by CDW: CDW Client Virtualization Straw Poll Report. The guess here is that the large majority are in the “considering” category and are looking at using client virtualization for selected users and departments as a way to get a handle on the technology and what it will actually take to implement it. But Windows 7 deployment is certainly a major impetus for looking at VDI.

This is from Christopher Pyle, Presidnt and CEO of Champion Solutions Group, an infrastructure solutions and professional services provider that claims to have helped hundreds of customers implement VDI. He was asked: Is Windows 7 migration a good time to consider implementing VDI. His response: “First of all, Microsoft only supports the latest two versions of its operating system, Vista and Windows 7. However, 80 percent of the world runs Windows XP, which means that they need to migrate to Vista, and that’s not the OS you want to use. You should move to Windows 7. The problem is many of the desktops that run XP won’t run Windows 7 because they aren’t powerful enough. So if a company is interested in prolonging the life of its existing desktop infrastructure, VDI is a great way to do that. VDI is also a much faster way to deploy a new operating system than the traditional method. It’s a good way to ease into Windows 7. We’ve seen clients put a Windows 7 icon on the desktops of Windows XP users and simply ask them to click on that icon every afternoon and run in the Windows 7 environment till the end of the work day. If they have have trouble, they simply go back to the XP environment. Clients can continue this for a few weeks prior to flipping the switch to a full Windows 7 migration. It allows the end user to ease into the new Windows 7 environment.”

Our final bit of research is from an article of unknown origin that talks about VDI, Windows 7 and the impact on existing hardware. The main point is that you’re better off if the hardware is 64-bit and has more than 4GB of RAM. The other important point is that if the processor doesn’t support virtualization, or the BIOS doesn’t support virtualization, you won’t be able to use Windows XP Mode, although you will still be able to use virtual machines. Overall, VDI environments require more resources and these include newer processors with more RAM, if your budget allows. And, if you’re migrating to Windows 7, your budget in all likelihood would and should allow for it.

So what do you think? We are transitioning the Trender blog next week to talk about VDI, so if you want to comment on Windows 7 now’s the time to speak up. See you on Friday.

Speculating on Windows 7 Service Pack 2

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is already more than two months old so it’s time to start thinking about Service Pack 2, right? Well, we’re not exactly spending sleepless nights thinking about Service Pack 2, since it is probably at least a year and maybe as much as 18 months away. So we will leave it to others to speculate on Service Pack 2, in this case an article by Mary Branscombe of TechRadar in the U.K: Windows 7 Service Pack 2: What To Expect. Based on the article here are some of the things you may expect.

• Direct support for USB 3 and SuperSpeed.
• Better multi-threading support for indexing and search
• Improvements to the touch options and the new phone-like interface in Windows 8 are tied in to a new programming model based on Silverlight and Windows Phone app frameworks. This is likely to be available for Windows 7 – along with whatever app store Microsoft comes out wit — although the article notes that this won’t be available on Windows 7 until its available for Windows 8 as well.
• Support for Kinect on PC that is broader than the development kit aimed at researchers, notes the article, “could be the most exciting feature that could realistically make it into Windows 7 SP2.”

Finally, one more point: “Gesture control for Media Center, games or Web browsing would be fairly straightforward and a great introduction to the next-generation natural user interface we expect Microsoft is planning for Windows 8.”

So there you have some early expert speculation on what may be in store for Windows 7. What do you think should be in Service Pack 2 and what do you think will be on Service Pack 2? Talk amongst yourselves.

Will VDI Drive Windows 7 Migration?

As companies are considering Windows 7 migration, it turns out that one of the driving factors in accelerating adoption may be desktop virtualization, at least according to some of the experts. Although desktop virtualization has not caught on as quickly and extensively as some of the leading pundits had predicted, the move to Windows 7 might be a catalyst for increased adoption. InfoWorld lists Windows 7 migration as the top reason to consider virtualization in 2011 and quotes Jim Curtin, president and CEO of Virtual Bridges, as follows: “Virtualization can save on buying new desktops, it can allow you to run in parallel on existing machines, it can allow you to enable users with the check of a box -– and it can do it at a fraction of the budget.”

Curtin’s points are backed by research released yesterday from Ireland, where a leading value-added distributor, Data Solutions, announced results of a survey that shows 30 percent of Irish companies plan to deploy desktop virtualization and, of those that plan to deploy it, 63 percent said they will deploy it in 2011. The company had also done research in the U.K. and found a significant increase in the number of planned desktop virtualization installations. The study found that in 2009 only 35 percent of UK businesses were planning to or already had deployed a desktop virtualization project, compared to 82 percent by the end of 2010.

The main reason given by those organizations deploying desktop virtualization was the long-term measurable costs savings they can achieve, coupled with the efficiencies it brings to the overall organization. Those surveyed also see migration to Windows 7 as a key driving factor for desktop virtualization adoption in 2011 “as it will help to reduce the associated migration costs and the lengthy implementation process.”

For another real interesting take on the topic, check out this interview with VDI expert Brian Madden for the Web site SiliconAngle.TV. Madden notes that VDI is a huge threat to Microsoft, but one that the company will roll into an opportunity. One excerpt: “If Microsoft wanted 100 million users using desktop virtualization by the end of next year they could do it in an instant. They won’t, but they could.”

What do you think? Is desktop virtualization a driving factor for Windows 7 migration and, if so, what is Microsoft’s real attitude towards desktop virtualization?

Microsoft: Of Course Windows XP Is (Not) Good Enough

Is Windows XP good enough? That was the question Microsoft posed earlier this week to a panel of IT professionals and Microsoft subject matter experts as part of its Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable program of Webcasts. The question, of course, was a loaded one and the answer, of course, was a resounding “No!” It’s what you’d expect as Microsoft is trying to implore customers to make the shift to Windows 7, but it’s also always instructive to look at the specific reasons why Microsoft is telling you to migrate sooner rather than later. So, what are some of the reasons?

• Support: Obviously, one of the main reasons that Windows XP is not good enough now is that it definitely won’t be good enough as of April 2014. The countdown has already begun and the host of the event, Stephen L. Rose, a Microsoft IT professional community manager, made sure to note that there are only about 1,000 days before Microsoft will end its extended support for Windows XP. The issue is not just the end of Microsoft support, but also the end of support from third parties, ISVs and OEMs.
• Features: Among the features highlighted during the discussion were BitLocker, BitLocker To Go and Applocker. As part of this discussion, there were mentions of the strength of Windows 7 for mobility as compared with Windows XP. One of the experts mentioned that with Windows 7 users can automatically find a Wi-Fi hot spot, which they are unable do to with Windows XP.

All in all, the discussion was informative and probably worth a look on demand: Is Windows XP Good Enough.

Speaking of Webcasts, there’s also a Webcast tomorrow on Migration Best Practices for Office 2010 hosted by ConverterTechnology. The Webcast will address migration planning, benefits, case studies and potential hurdles and will feature Benjamin Gray of Forrester Research. Converter Technology is also giving away free copies of Forrester Research: Pitfalls to Avoid When Upgrading to Microsoft Office 2010.

Odds & Ends: W7 Market Share, Windows 8 Beta and More

Let’s start the new week with some newsworthy items from the world of Windows 7. Did you see the reports that Windows 7 has surpassed Windows XP in market share for the first time this month? According to StatCounter, Windows 7’s average daily share for the first 10 days of the month was 32.2 percent, compared to XP’s average of 30.7. This is just one measure from one metrics vendor, but it is a milestone nonetheless, and it seems to lend credence to Microsoft’s claim that Windows 7 is its fastest selling operating system ever.

Even while Windows 7 is achieving new heights, the Internet is buzzing with speculation on its replacement, Windows 8. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle, among other places, predicts that Microsoft will probably show off its first public beta of Windows 8 in September at a Professional Developers’ Conference (PDC) September 13-16 in Anaheim. If so, it would a similar rollout process to Windows 7, which made its beta debut at a Professional Developers’ Conference in October 2008. According to the Chronicle report, Microsoft usually holds a big PDC only when a new platform is debuting. Speaking of betas, Microsoft today announced the public beta of Office 365.

Also today, Microsoft will begin rolling out Internet Explorer 9 to Windows 7 customers through Windows Update. “On April 18^th, a little over a month after the final release of IE9, we will be ready to start the rollout of IE9 to our Windows7 and Windows Vista customers,” said Roger Capriotti, Director of Internet Explorer Marketing in his Exploring IE blog last week. “Similar to our approach for IE8, we will use Windows Update to deliver IE9 to users. IE9 will not install automatically on machines. Users will have to agree to install IE9.” For business customers who required time to plan and test their deployments, Microsoft will make IE9 available on Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in June. “WSUS allows use of management tools that make it easy for IT professionals to deploy IE9 in their environments in an automated fashion and at their own pace,” Capriotti writes.

That’s our Windows 7 news for a Monday morning. Anyone out there have anything to add?

Windows 7 Migration: Another Point of View, Part 2

We continue our conversation with Prowess co-founder and CEO Aaron Suzuki about Windows 7 migration. The focus today is on potential pitfalls and time frames (along with a little plug from Aaron about his own company’s solution):

The Techster: What are some of the potential pitfalls IT professionals should be aware of in tackling a migration to Windows 7?

Aaron Suzuki: The worst move is to in any way not sufficiently plan and test prior to deployment. Past processes probably won’t work the same with Windows 7 as they did with XP. There are lots of little potential gotchas – and some great big ones – so it is worth measuring twice before you cut. And don’t deploy an old OS on new hardware. If you’re ordering new and you aren’t ready to roll out Windows 7 in large scale, just leave it on the new systems and run an XP VM. The old OS probably won’t like your new hardware and it’s just not worth the hassle to keep the organization on one OS purely on principle.

The Techster: What is the optimum ultimate outcome for a migration and how long should it take to get there?

Aaron Suzuki: The best outcome is a fluid, completely automated deployment process without any crazy application compatibility work-arounds, and everyone is running Windows 7 on their assortment of heterogeneous devices (or virtualization platforms) of choice, or if you’re a “consumerization of IT” friendly organization, people can get any device they like and it will all still work perfectly and provide an identical operating environment and user experience. Your deployment solution shouldn’t require hardware standardization.

The question of “how long” is really going to vary by organization size and the platform requirements and complexity. But for most mid-size organizations, if they focus on it, this really should be able to be done in less than a year. But it is common for this entire process of discovery, architecting, planning, and testing to run over the course of multiple years as different facets of the migration plan and process are ironed out.

Done properly, the job gets pretty easy.

The Techster: What does your company do to help and why is it different/better than other alternatives?

Aaron Suzuki: We create a product called SmartDeploy Enterprise, which is a Windows deployment solution based on the latest standards and deployment best practices. I think if people understood that there is a different way to do deployment that really is easier and so much faster and simpler, and happens to be cheaper, IT departments would be filled with happier people.

There are three key things that make it completely different from what’s on the market today. First is the use of a VM for the reference computer, which eliminates the hardware-based imaging methods that prevail currently. It turns the image update process from a day or more into a 20-minute task, no additional hardware required. The second major differentiator is our hardware independence model, which logically and physically separates drivers from the system image. If you ask nice, we’ll even help you package them up. Finally, the product is licensed by the technician rather than per node, making it the best value on the market. I don’t know of a customer that hasn’t gotten full ROI on their first project.

Back to The Techster: That completes our interview with Aaron and our second week of the Windows 7 Trender blog. Please feel free to comment – actually, at this point we’re kind of begging for comments – and let us know (1) what you think and (2) what you would like to see us write about. See you again on Monday.

Windows 7 Migration: Another Point of View, Part 1

We did those posts last week on Windows 7 migration and what Gartner thinks and we heard from a few people who beg to differ. One of the notes we received was from Aaron Suzuki, co-founder and CEO of Prowess, a Seattle-based managed services provider, consulting company and Microsoft Gold Partner whose SmartDeploy Enterprise is a Windows deployment solution. So we shot off a few questions to Aaron and we shall publish his replies in two parts, starting henceforth with this:

The Techster: You say your take on realistic timelines for Windows 7 migration is somewhat different than what the bigger analysts are saying. From what you are seeing, what are realistic timetables and why are your suggestions different?

Aaron Suzuki: Frankly, I’m not sure why our observations are so much different from analyst projections. We are hearing directly from customers at every level – from CTOs to desktop support techs – that they’re in no hurry. So our perspective is based solely upon what we’re hearing from customers. I’m sure analysts are talking to customers, but I think they are also factoring in things like the end-of-life date and other factors like that, but most organizations we talk to don’t care. They might be preparing or testing, but many of them have no particular timeframe for migration established and have no anxiety about it at all.

A realistic timetable at an organizational level is completely subjective. It is going to vary tremendously organization to organization. But it is logical that larger organizations with a larger, more diverse baseline of applications and orders of magnitude more desktops will take much longer to migrate. From our perspective, an overall timetable for the vast majority of businesses to complete migration to Windows 7 will be late 2014. The natural question then is about “Windows.next” and it’s availability relative to customers’ deployment timeframes. The thing everyone needs to appreciate –the Windows ISV community, system integrators, resellers, and especially Microsoft themselves – is that customers have their own computing agenda and not everyone is a geek like us and is hungry for the next fancy OS. Another critical consideration is because of the growing number of options available (consider desktop virtualization and cloud) I think we’ll see an increasingly lethargic response from customers in response to pressure to update the desktop OS frequently.

The Techster: What steps should organizations take to prepare for a Windows 7 migration?

Aaron Suzuki: They need to plan, plan, and plan. They need to look at everything from their hardware refresh plan to application compatibility to security and test everything like crazy. Many organizations spent a lot of money making XP do things that Windows 7 does natively, like disk encryption. It is important to determine whether you’re going to stick with the solution you’ve devised or just go with what’s in the box with Windows.

A lot of companies skipped Vista, so there was some critical planning that would have accompanied that move and that is ground that still needs to be covered, especially regarding application compatibility and IE compatibility. And with that lesson learned, looking to Windows.next, even if you plan to skip an OS internally it is good to test and learn it so you know what’s going on as technology evolves, and you can minimize pain and save time when you are ready to move.

This is also a great time to reevaluate and retool deployment processes. Our own product notwithstanding, there are some great tools and new technologies that can make it so much easier to get Windows to the end point and installed with minimal headaches. It’s worth an investment of time to see what’s out there and what will be useful for the long term. People might be surprised what you can do with one ordinary IT person. Windows deployment doesn’t have to be the rocket science that many tools require it to be.

That’s it for now. In our next post we will ask Aaron about potential pitfalls and time frames. Stay tuned.

IT Pros Cite Toughest Challenges in Windows 7 Migration

Our posts last week on Windows 7 migration generated some interesting feedback, although we are still awaiting and encouraging actual comments on the blog, rather than through email. One of our respondents pointed us to a research brief on Windows 7 migration that many of you probably missed. It is a proprietary survey of more than 1,500 IT professionals in the U.S. and several countries in Europe. The survey, issued by RES Software, has quite an imposing title: Windows 7 Migration: Inevitable and Necessary For Most IT Shops, But Time and Tools are Essential Ingredients for Success.

If you can navigate the mountainous title, the information is quite informative. What we found most interesting were the responses to the question on challenges faced by IT professionals when migrating to new operating systems. The toughest challenge: Migrating user profiles from on operating system to the next. Here are all the responses to the toughest challenge question (obviously respondents were allowed to provide more than one answer):

• Difficulty migrating user profiles from one OS to the next: 45%
• Difficulty knowing what permissions and applications need to be migrated: 43%
• End-user down time and lost productivity: 37%
• Inundated with help-desk calls, user complaints: 35%
• Too many redundant, manual processes: 32%
• Working additional hours/overtime: 27%
• Lack of knowledge regarding the individual user environment: 24%
• Difficulty implementing on time and within budget: 19%
• Inability to focus on more strategic projects: 15%

Much of the data in the survey is fairly consistent with the Gartner data we described last week: Nearly two thirds of the respondents said their organizations had purchased Windows 7 licenses and nearly 60 percent said they had either begun the migration process or are planning to do so in the near future. As Gartner suggested, the period from now till the end of the year will be the peak migratory period. As Gartner also suggested, many organizations are not budgeting enough time to do the migration properly. Where Gartner posited a 12-18-month period, more than half of the respondents said they would be doing it in less than 12 months and another 22 percent said they were not sure how long it would take. As for the critical phase of application testing, functionality testing and map/terrain matching analysis, nearly 40 percent said they would be allocating one to three months for this process.

We won’t bore you with more numbers, but we think it’s worth taking a look at the survey. And we are not done looking at Windows 7 migration ourselves: On our next post we will be looking at a potentially contrarian viewpoint. Stay tuned. And, please, don’t be afraid to post a comment.

Windows 7 Migration: Problems, Pitfalls & Best Practices

We complete this week’s riff on Gartner’s Windows 7 migration POV with an examination of what to expect, what to watch out for and what are some of the best practices to consider in your own migration plan. If you have other ideas, please feel free to share them.

First off, Gartner offers some advice to address applications compatibility problems, which is important: Based on early experience, one in four applications should have some kind of problem. The best solution is to fix it by changing the code or upgrading to a new version, which could also involve replacing or rewriting applications written in house. You can also try to put in a makeshift fix by changing the way Windows 7 treats the application. There are other ways to use remote capabilities and virtualization to create temporary fixes, but Gartner suggests these should be used sparingly.

So, what are the pitfalls to watch out for? Here’s Gartner’s take:

• Too short a pilot plan
• No business plan
• No plan to measure progress and successes
• Continuous migrations with no breaks
• Not having resources dedicated to the project
• Planning a forklift migration without a zero or light touch
• Project stuffing
• Having the same person as both the project manager and the tech lead
• Not seeking professional help early enough
• Waiting for Service Pack 1 to get started, although this should be moot since Service Pack 1 is available now.

And, finally, what are Gartner’s recommendations for best migration practices:

• Plan user account control
• Allocate sufficient time to test and remediate browser apps
• Understand ISV support
• Involve the users
• Set a (conservative) target end date
• Budget enough time for application testing
• Plan properly for 64 bit
• Avoid deploying too much XP Mode or Med-V
• Don’t include Office 2010 if you’re not ready
• Don’t delay starting.

So there you have Gartner’s take on Windows 7 migration. What’s yours?