Opinion: Your XP-to-Windows 7 upgrade path: Buy a new PC
Microsoft's leaders really, really want you to forget about Vista and move right on to Windows 7. And who can blame them? Vista was a train wreck. No one who knows what they're doing runs Vista, not even the Microsoft faithful. Windows 7, on the other hand, is a worthwhile desktop operating system. There's only one little problem. There's no good way to get from XP to 7.
Actually, that's not a small problem at all. According to Net Applications' Market Share report , in August 2009, 71.7% of all desktops were running XP, compared to a mere 18.8% running Vista. So, that means the great majority of Windows users will have to try to migrate from XP to 7.
I use the word "migrate" deliberately instead of "update" or "upgrade" because this will be a migration. If you are among the small minority using Vista, you can upgrade to 7 without any fuss or muss, so long as the move is between equivalent versions, like Vista Home Premium and Windows 7 Home Premium, or you're jumping up, to Windows 7 Ultimate, for example.
I only wish that were the case for XP. The only way you can get from XP to Windows 7 is to do a clean install . Period. End of statement.
And, what's involved with a clean install, you ask? It means you erase every last program and file on your hard disk during the "upgrade." Ow.
You can save some of it. Microsoft's Windows Easy Transfer , which comes in Windows 7, will let you save your files and your settings. Of course, some of those settings may not work anymore with Windows 7, but that's a relatively minor pain.
The major headache is that you can't transfer your old programs and device drivers from XP to Windows 7. So, do you know where your install disk is for Quicken 2008? How about Office 2003? Or, for that matter, do you really want to download iTunes and Firefox, plus a half-dozen must-have Firefox extensions, all over again? Well, you'd better know what you have on your current XP system, and you'd better be ready to reinstall them all and reset them to just the way you like them, because that's exactly what you're going to need to do.
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And now, a word from REALITY....
OK, lets assume we need to upgrade 100 business desktops. All with between 5 and 10 customized / departmental applications. Add to that, all of the apps, documents and email, etc of 100 users and; according to our author, this is IT h*ll. With an IT staff with no REAL WORLD experience... expect this to be the case. Aside from the licensing "insanity", and his bizarre budget calculations (business licensing-mate), he's spot on. In bizarro world....A few buzzwords and such for ya, Steve: Ghost, drive imaging, roaming profiles, industrial strength drive duplication equipment, full user profiles from your currently - hopefully stable network, replacing the old user's pc hard disk with an imaged disk - ready to import the specific user's data, SMS server, MOM server, etc. All of these things would add together to make the process to migrate a user approximately a 20 minute venture per pc; well... plus all of the time of the rollout developement cycle. Please don't think I'm not considering all of the millions of hours of testings all of the major depart's "major apps". Thats another topic alltogether. We are talking simpified desktop deployment. Its a BASIC tenet of the whole idea of Microshaft.
Mind you, I'm writing this using Firefox on Ubuntu 9.04 - I might know my Microsoft (15 + years experience, and certs from the NT days), but I'm older and wiser and have my own company now. Wax on wax off young student. Think outside the box - and overall, don't panic... EVER! Your problem (ANY PROBLEM)has been encountered before, and someone; somewhere has posted a solution online. Google is your friend. Forget the books and remember your street smarts. Your article has an "I'm scared" undertone all over it, and if a potential customer saw it, at least I would run. Dunno about anyone else.
Unfortunately, it is BOOKSMART and NOT BATTLEFIELDSMART that companies are getting now. This was not meant to insult you, or anybody - but to just be a "commentary". I did not mean to do a soapbox kind of thing, but if this is whats going to be the future of my country, then we're fubar - ed, and I had to say something.
Hang in there,
Cybertech