Need advice: 5000+ systems needing to be upgraded from XP to Windows 7

Rockets34Life

Hello everyone! After struggling for 9 months in my current b.s job I'm in, I finally landed a new IT position!

I was doing help desk/desktop support/PC tech garbage (actually more help desk - conned by employer into this position), but this role I accepted (currently going through background check), it's more of a long-term roll-out. I'm kind of a go-to lead setting up policies/procedures/scheduling to upgrade 5000+ desktops/laptops from Windows XP to Windows 7.

I actually kind of do the heavy lifting of upgrading XP to 7 machines in my current crap job, but the new company told me I'm actually going to be doing the coordinating part of it. My current position, we tell the users (and this is the company's process and procedure) that for an upgrade, it will take 24-48 hours depending on how much data they have. Same process - backing up data, wiping HD, upgrading to 7 with company image, restoring data and applications, but we back up their data to an external HD instead of a network share. And the users do not get a loaner. I can implement that in this new position.

The new company told me the turnaround time is going to be 4 hours (backing up data, wiping HD, upgrading to 7 with company image, restoring data and applications). The 4 hours are broken down in 2 days (3pm-5pm 1st day and 8am-10am 2nd day). The data is being backed up and pulled down from a network share. The new company wants to do about 30-40 laptops a day.

I know the toughest parts of the position are the (a) scheduling with end users on doing the upgrade and (b) getting the laptop out of their deathly grips and out of their comfort bubble.

Any ideas, tips, advice to help a fellow TechExams brother out with this new position?

kriscamaro68

Do you have access to a sccm\config man server? If you could use that you can just load all the drivers\apps you need for all the computers and image them pretty quick. As for the scheduling part while thats something you are going to have to work around.

demonfurbie

ya could use windows aik for most all of what your needing, id suggest you take it in the sleep or when they get up to pee

WafflesAndRootbeer

5000 is going to take several months to do depending on the hardware and established procedures. It really sounds like you have a farking idiot who came up with the idea to do an across-the-board upgrade with four hours turn-around time per machine with that number of machines and you beholden to the schedules of users. As far as their data goes, that stuff should be on their network shares or flash drives. You shouldn't be wasting time backing up any of it from their machines. If things aren't set up where anyone can log onto any machine and have their stuff right there for them, without any reduction in productivity, then your organization needs a hot poker in the rectum. If you want to use the network to image machines, great, but it's not gonna fly during work hours because that will kill your network if you are trying to do more than several at a time. The easiest thing to do, when dealing with large numbers and quick turn around times, is to get a bunch of SSDs/Flash drives and use those to re-image the machines by booting to them to run the re-imaging process as they will go faster than downloading from a network share.

swild

It depends on how complex your environment is. Do you have any proprietary applications that will have to be installed post image? In my current role, it takes at minimum 1 hour to image a machine. That's assuming everything is smooth. Usually it's more like 2 to 5 hours. The actual imaging takes about 25 minutes to load and the rest is the custom config due to our highly complex environment. I can generally be working on 4 or so at a time, but that's seriously a record. Most only do 1 or 2 at a time.

In your case, I see what they are doing. You are backing up data and user config for 2 hours and starting the image process overnight. the next day you come in and load the user data and 1 small application to be done in 2 hours. seriously. Do the math, if you are imaging 40 laptops in 2 hours, you can only touch each laptop for 3 minutes each. No breathing, no peeing, no blinking, no drinking coffee.

Mind you, there are some awesome tools with Win7 and server 2008, but I would be amazed if that could actually happen. We run XP here so I can tell you it won't happen in XP. Not with backing up user files and restoring applications. You would have to have some really KILLER scripting skills. And standardized hardware across the board.

themagicone

There needs to be some serious leg work beforehand. You need to know exactly what type of hardware, how many of each, etc. Then you will build a image for each hardware config and use that to push out to the users. As for data... you need to figure out what data needs to be backed up, where, how its going to be restored etc. Also, applications... you need to get groups defined with the software they need, how its set up etc. Best bet would be to move user profiles to roaming. Then all you really need to do is push the upgrade, install the software and they are back in business. At 5000 pcs/laptops I wouldn't put 2 to 3 months of just ground work before anything gets done. Even then I would do it in stages, 100 first week - wait a week for issues to be fixes, rebuild as needed then push another 250, wait/fix/etc, push 1000... You get the idea. Push 500+ the first week your life is going to be hell the following Monday.

ozi83

Have a look at the Dell KACE System Deployment Appliance.
It can backup user data with "User State Migration" and can deploy the company image and restore the data it backed up.
If you are doing 5000 computers your company should have a deployment solution like KACE, Microsoft SCCM or Altiris.

qcomer

MDT can do this and its free. You can also add software to your task sequence for install.

The migrate feature hardinks the data, wipes XP, installs7 and puts data back. Start menu, shortcuts, settings, etc.

MdT will also pick the right drivers to use. You can import into MDT.

powerfool

You could just buy a much smaller number of beefy servers and implement a virtualized desktop initiative. 5000 desktops are a lot to implement... it is even more to manage.

ozi83

MDL is considered lite touch where it requires user input to start the migration process but SCCM and others can do zero touch which doesn't require any physical input to kick off the migration.

wweboy

When I did contract work for a super large company. The company rolled out 115,000 computers over 37 countries over a 6 month period. The company had spent 2 years planning, working directly with the hardware vendor of the PCs, Microsoft and had vendor technicians on site during the larger portions of the roll out. I'll be up front I was just a contractor for 9 months when I started working for the company the procedures were in place and things were running smoothly.

The company made much use of SCCM. My job was to re mediate the software. The company had done a complete software audit and every single piece of software was placed into 4 categories. Category 1 was bossiness applications by major vendors (i.e Microsoft, adobe etc) Category 2 was other software by other vendors category 3 was internally written software and category 4 was banned software (Kazaa, limewire etc)

Each software had someone who used the software frequently used it and would be responsible for final testing and okaying the software. So my job was to write the documentation for installation on Windows 7. The instructions were passed to someone else who created the SCCM package then sent back to me and I tested the install on a lab machine if everything went well we would follow up wit the responsible person to do testing and we would finalize it and move on. If it failed we would work with the vendor or write shims or use virtual XP. There were mirrored versions of my job all over the globe I worked on English software, German and even Romanian software!

SCCM was a huge factor in making everything one smooth. I got a chance to build a PC from scratch, it started with a ghost image of a base company image and then it was a 5 phase process that you told it who the computer was for and the asset number and then it found the information in AD then it copied stuff down and then SCCM took over and installed every piece of software needed gets auto installed when said and done the PC is ready to login and be used it was neat.

The company also worked directly with the PC manufacturer and even had on staff techs from the manufacturer during the roll out to help with any issues that arose. For such a large project it went really smooth there were probably a lot of things that I didn't see from a higher level as I had my tasks and that was it as a contract I just did was I was required no more no less in the 9 months I was there we spent 6 months software remediation which was ongoing by others around the country when I started and then I moved into a help desk role while the two people above me jetted to other countries to help support the roll out.

Sorry this is so long its just something I've been apart of, You have a large task ahead of you and it will not be a one man job and you will need to delegate tasks and maybe even make a committee. You'll need to think of every single thing from hardware, user training and everything in between.

Good luck in your project I'm sure you'll learn a lot.

qcomer

ozi83 wrote: »

MDL is considered lite touch where it requires user input to start the migration process but SCCM and others can do zero touch which doesn't require any physical input to kick off the migration.

MDT can be zero-touched also. But yes, SCCM is zero touch. In all honesty, its kind of hard to tell without the following info:

How many other techs?
Any special software?
What software will be installed?
What brand/make/model
etc.

I would honestly recommend SCCM or atleast MDT to get this done. But the timeline is a HUGE restriction and whoever came up with it is a dunce.