Requirements and Specifications for Windows 7 roll out

N2IT

I was wondering if the kind people on tech exams could discuss some of the challenges you have had rolling out Windows 7.

I'm coming from a client/end user vantage point.

Minimium hardware requirements (real world)
Application versioning
Security applications and encryption
Compatibility


Any lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

netsysllc

The hardware requirements are not that great, but I would say minimum of 2GB. I have put it old 10-12 year old computers with 512MB of ram and it was not much slower than XP.

Most applications work fine. For the few that dont there are many choices like XP mode, app-v and med-v depending on your environment. The biggest issue we run into is places running a legacy DOS application and they buy x64 computers. XP Mode is how we take care of that in most cases.

I am not sure what you are asking specifically with security applications and encryption

WafflesAndRootbeer

Same as Vista more or less but you definitely face challenges if the following factors are in play...

Older hardware. A lot of it didn't run well under Vista because of the changes in Windows and lack of good driver support. If the drivers available for the hardware have not been updated in some time, then you need new hardware if it's in the budget. Usually, this only applies to graphics cards but specialty hardware is also something that needs to be examined. Also, peripheral devices. If you don't have fresh or consistently updated drivers for printers, you need to look at replacing them, though you should evaluate performance under Windows 7 with a test unit before committing to any hardware or software upgrades. Any hardware from Vista or the tail-end of XP can be rolled over to 7 easily, though a graphics card and memory are two hardware upgrades that would be mandatory for moving to 7 based on my experiences. I know people are told to get by with less but there's a big performance gap between today's hardware and software and yesterday's hardware with today's software and upgrading those two things will usually fix performance issues. Also, take a look at the HDDs. They need to be upgraded if at all possible as those are always serious bottlenecks in office systems since they are usually the cheapest and lowest performing drives available.

Applications. Not a problem unless you are really out of date. You have to examine it on a case by case basis and you might have trouble if you are going from XP era software to Windows 7 as there are significant changes due to Vista. Again, test and test. Windows 8 is more backwards compatible friendly than 7 but no application should be giving you a lot of trouble unless it's from the early days of XP or just poorly written as a speciality app.

Security applications and encryption are not a problem so long as all the settings are proper. Once again, test with a model before rolling it out. Make sure everything is documented on the older platform before going to the newer one so you have less to worry about.

elTorito

I'd say the biggest challenge we had in the jump from Windows 2000 (!) to Windows 7 was getting the end users to embrace the new technology from a functional point of view. Having skipped XP and Vista entirely, the jump to Windows 7 in our organization was so abrupt that a lot of the company's work processes had to be changed or adapted - not always to the benefit of the end user. To this day, we still have people complaining about performance (mostly pertaining to the clunky Windows 7 search functionality, and the poor performance when copying large amounts of small files from the GUI). All in all, I do not think the migration to Windows 7 did anything to align our IT infrastructure with business goals.

So, in my experience, the challenge definitely wasn't technical in nature. A lot of people might've had trouble with application compatibility, but between Windows 7's built-in compatibility modes, RemoteApp, Terminal Services and VMware ThinApp, getting older applications to work has been relatively simple.

If you're spearheading a Windows 7 rollout (coming from an older OS, that is), definitely pay special attention to ensuring that the end user experience, as well as productivity, do not suffer compared to what the users were used to. End user acceptance will be essential to limit the backlash you might get from higher management, so make sure that the pilot phase of the project receives enough - if not most of the - attention.

SteveLord

I did Windows 7 + Office 2010. Office ended up being the most difficult for users to adapt to (coming fro 2003.) However, my office of 35 people made it easy enough to do one machine at a time and figure out the kinks along the way.

N2IT

Thanks for sharing your lessons learned

ptilsen

Hardware for Windows 7 itself is not too bad. MS lists 2GB RAM for 64-bit systems, but 1GB is fine. I wouldn't go under 1GB, personally. I would mark anything under minimum vendor specs as a risk, but actually "refuse" less than 1GB. It might run on 512MB, but it's really pushing it.

Applications can be tricky, but as stated, you still have terminal services and virtual desktop. If you need to stay on the same version of a workstation-centric application such as AutoCAD, that's where it gets tricky. The good news is that most apps made this century can be made to work, one way or another.

Security and encryption are easier, if anything. I don't see any challenge there.

Printing is the big thing with compatibility, especially if you're moving to 64-bit Windows 7 (which, despite, challenges, I highly recommend). You have to upgrade your print server infrastructure ahead of time or have some sort of strategy planned. This best choice, IMO, is to take a 2008 R2 or 2012 printer server, install all the printers with identical names (there's a way to script it), and do a little bit of magic (registry changes, DNS alias, and service principle name changes) to effectively replace the existing 32-bit server without touching existing clients or greatly changing scripts. The new server can serve to both 32-bit and 64-bit. If you're not using printer servers, then it's not too hard.

Old applications are also less likely to be compatible on 64-bit, but again, there are almost always options.

Overall, it's not too bad. I worked on migration projects for seven or eight small business in 2010 through 2012, and right now I'm in the middle of an enterprise migration of 2000 PCs using zero-touch in-place upgrades with SCCM and USMT. The single biggest challenge has actually been specifically getting an older version of AutoCAD not supported on 7 to work on 64-bit 7 in 32-bit mode along with a custom in-house app that directly integrates with it and other AutoCAD products. In this case, the challenge was highly technical, and if it weren't for the need for an older version of AutoCAD (virtualiztion being a non-solution for AutoCAD), the whole thing would have been relatively easy.

On a final note, Office 2010 is different. Don't deploy Office 2010 + Windows 7 to old PCs with single-core processors and less than 2GB of RAM. They can handle Windows 7, but they cannot handle Office 2010. Office 2010 on 1GB of RAM is just terrible.

SteveLord

Memory is dirt cheap. Shouldn't even bother with less than 4GB in my opinion. All my people run i7 860s w/ 4GB. And I've run an i7 980X w/ 16GB for 2 years now. Never had a complaint about performance.

I will agree about printers. I still wrestle with a few in my office. Next upgrade will involve all machines being 64bit. So no more having to juggle drivers and battle compatibility.

ptilsen

Oh I agree, memory is cheap and you'd think upgrading to 2GB wouldn't be a big deal. But you'd be surprised -- some organizations would rather risk performance problems and be way off minimum vendor specs than upgrade hardware that's on a set life-cycle. That is more what I'm getting at with that challenge.

ptilsen

Also, this issue is worth pointing out, in case you're looking at deploying Windows 7 to existing hardware. Even if it's being done with something other than USMT and SCCM, the problem is the same.

Tackle

ptilsen wrote: »

Oh I agree, memory is cheap and you'd think upgrading to 2GB wouldn't be a big deal. But you'd be surprised -- some organizations would rather risk performance problems and be way off minimum vendor specs that upgrade hardware that's on a set life-cycle. That is more what I'm getting at with that challenge.

Majority of my in house users run Optiplex GX260's with 1GB ram and 2.4Ghz P4's on XP. I don't think we are going to be replacing them all before the EOL for XP, haha.

ptilsen

Tackle, I assume they won't be upgraded to 7, either. Without stripping down the UI and features, particularly indexing, 7 would really be a downgrade for systems that old. Pretty disgusting either way, if you ask me. I'm happy to say that I don't think we have any single-core systems left as production workstations.

higherho

I will warn you now, do not go with 2 GB as a min for Windows 7. If your users use applications alot (outlook, etc) it will suck up the memory in no time (my old work laptop which also had a harden Windows 7 OS using McaFee enterprise tools reported low memory after three days of standby).

The OS it self takes up 1 to 1.5 GIG roughly without anything running in the background.

Essendon

I'm with higherho on this one, we had to chuck more RAM in for everyone in IT because of a HP call logging/CMDB tool called Service Manager. 4GB RAM keeps the computers humming along nicely.

ptilsen

I agree that 4GB is a nice spot, but it will run just fine on two. It's your applications that make it slow. If you're running light applications, as our weaker workstations are, 2GB is going to be just fine. If you're running Office 2010, anything graphically intensive or otherwise memory intensive, 4GB is a huge improvement.

Tackle

ptilsen wrote: »

Tackle, I assume they won't be upgraded to 7, either. Without stripping down the UI and features, particularly indexing, 7 would really be a downgrade for systems that old. Pretty disgusting either way, if you ask me. I'm happy to say that I don't think we have any single-core systems left as production workstations.

Noooo, not going to upgrade them to 7. We are replacing an average of 1 pc a month...so within the next 5 or 6 years at this rate they will all be on 7 or whatever else is out. Not my choice, they decided that's all we can afford. Money is better spent on other things apparently.

GAngel

Tackle wrote: »

Noooo, not going to upgrade them to 7. We are replacing an average of 1 pc a month...so within the next 5 or 6 years at this rate they will all be on 7 or whatever else is out. Not my choice, they decided that's all we can afford. Money is better spent on other things apparently.

Windows XP is at the end of its cycle in 6 months you may not have a choice.

I've been the PM on large scale deployments for 2 years and about a dozen companies from 100-80,000 biggest challenge was the apps. Second was the deployment solution itself and lastly is the users reaction to change.

joehalford01

The biggest challenge for us was getting everyone used to the ribbon in Office 2010. We we're also running GX260's and GX270's, we upgraded hardware for everyone. This was hands down one of the biggest improvements we've made for productivity. The computers are fast, hardware isn't failing every other day, and security is vastly improved (Group policy has alot more to offer windows 7 over XP).
I still have a couple xp stragglers due to printer and application incompatibility.

ptilsen

GAngel wrote: »

Windows XP is at the end of its cycle in 6 months you may not have a choice.

XP support ends in April 2014, so 18 months. Even then, it doesn't magically stop working. I suspect it will still be common in production environments well into 2015. There still plenty of Windows 2000 systems out there. It will go away as a workstation OS, but there will still be single-purpose machines out there that there is no hard benefit to upgrade.

SteveLord

I don't know if I would say there are "plenty" of 2k systems. This most recent April report says .16%
Report: Windows 8 used by just 0.11 percent of PC users - Neowin

Not knocking 2k. Great OS. Just saying. I would (unfortunately) put Vista in the "plenty" category.

ptilsen

How do you think that report is generated? Magic? It tracks Internet (web, really) usage. I didn't say there were plenty of people using Windows 2000 workstations as web browsers. I'm specifically talking about single-purpose machines running old applications, which may not even have Internet access and certainly aren't browsing the web. Plus all the old servers that can't be upgraded for whatever reason. There are still plenty of those out there. Also, .16% is still plenty when you're talking about billions of computers. That's still millions of computers running an operating system Microsoft replaced 11 years ago and ended support on over two years ago.

More anecdotally, I know of multiple large, publicly traded companies in the Twin Cities running hundreds of legacy Windows 2000 computers, and that's what I'm talking about. There are plenty of old systems left that organizations won't decommission.

GAngel

ptilsen wrote: »

How do you think that report is generated? Magic? It tracks Internet (web, really) usage. I didn't say there were plenty of people using Windows 2000 workstations as web browsers. I'm specifically talking about single-purpose machines running old applications, which may not even have Internet access and certainly aren't browsing the web. Plus all the old servers that can't be upgraded for whatever reason. There are still plenty of those out there. Also, .16% is still plenty when you're talking about billions of computers. That's still millions of computers running an operating system Microsoft replaced 11 years ago and ended support on over two years ago.

More anecdotally, I know of multiple large, publicly traded companies in the Twin Cities running hundreds of legacy Windows 2000 computers, and that's what I'm talking about. There are plenty of old systems left that organizations won't decommission.

Take a breath you're coming across as an A$$ and based on your cert history you're still a junior in this industry. When you're running your own show or are a known authority in your area you can make start throwing out definitive comments.

Besides that i think you're a great poster like andrew and paul of old from the security forums.