Best Practices for Deploying Windows 7

I recently had the chance to sit down with John West from Microsoft Services to talk about his work with our business customers, and he mentioned some really helpful tips for ensuring success with Windows 7 Enterprise deployments. It?s my pleasure to bring these best practices to you, along with some of my favorite customer stories of successful Windows 7 deployments.

Microsoft Services is the services and support division of Microsoft and helps customers around the world get the most value out of their investments in Microsoft products and technologies. In his role as a technology consultant, John has created a deployment solution used to migrate more than 200,000 PCs from one technology to another, including Windows 7.

I asked John to share some best practices he?s seen from the most successful and streamlined Windows 7 deployments, and I think his recommendations will be helpful for your own deployments:

• First, get your application inventory in order ? know your installation sources, which apps are critical, and define your application virtualization strategy. Ensure you have your packaging standards defined, identify your mix of internal and externally written apps, and don?t forget your Web apps. Knowing your application inventory gives you a clear path to make sure your apps are ready for deployment.
• Deploy System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to assess and update your computers and devices across physical, virtual, distributed, and mobile environments. SCCM enables deployment options like Zero Touch and User Driven Installations, while providing centralized reporting on each step during the migration. SCCM also integrates with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), providing a well-tested solution for automating many required deployment operations, such as disk encryption.
• Use SCCM as the delivery infrastructure for applications virtualized by App-V, which reduces costs associated with moving to a virtualized application infrastructure.
• Use this time as a chance to build your optimized desktop image; virtualize your data and apps. By examining your user base, segmenting their needs, and optimizing methods for data storage and application delivery, you?ll enhance user experience and streamline access to data and services, regardless of the device being used. At the same time, you can reduce the costs and time of delivery required for application management and deployment.

To help ease deployments, we?ve created partner and self-service resources to help organizations assess business value and build a plan for deploying a modern desktop environment with Windows 7 Enterprise, Microsoft App-V, Internet Explorer 8 and Office 2010 Professional Plus. You can find an overview of these resources here.

I?d like to share with you some real life examples of business customers who applied their own best practices and tools to ease their deployments. Samsung, New South Wales and the Emirates Group have made significant progress deploying Windows 7 in their organizations with help from Microsoft Services.

Microsoft Services assisted Samsung with the application compatibility testing phase of their Windows 7 rollout. Together, they investigated all business-critical and line-of-business applications, ensuring that Samsung?s migration to Windows 7 would be a smooth one all around.

The New South Wales Department of Education and Training in Australia is in the midst of rolling out Windows 7 to 267,000 student and teacher netbooks by mid-2012. The department is working with Microsoft Services to create their rollout plan for a successful deployment in the department?s large and complex environment.

The Emirates Group is upgrading to Windows 7 companywide - more than 21,000 computers. Before beginning their official deployment, the Emirates Group ran application compatibility tests and found issues with some of their legacy applications. The company worked with Microsoft Services to resolve those issues quickly so they were able to continue efficiently migrating to Windows 7.

?The keys to success are continued support from Microsoft, resolution of compatibility issues, and effective engagement with users,? said Fayyaz Alam, Vice President for IT Production Services at the Emirates Group.

For more information on Windows 7 for large, medium or small businesses, check out our business site, or read more enterprise company case studies or SMB case studies. To inquire about how Microsoft Services can help your company, please contact your local Microsoft sales representative.

Jennifer Scholle Tatiana Zavialova Tila Tequila Tamie Sheffield Kelly Monaco