Improved desktop and application deployment of Windows 7

Windows 7 Deployment

Windows 7 has improved desktop and application deployment. One of the toughest jobs in migrating to a different system is the deployment process. Microsoft has considered past issues and improved many aspects of this process for Windows 7, including hardware and application compatibility, new imaging tools and deployment methods/tools, and improved migration tools.

One of the biggest issues in Vista was driver and application compatibility support, and it has been addressed in Windows 7. As one will see when installing Windows 7, most third-party hardware and devices should work from first boot. If not, Microsoft has included multiple new ways to obtain and find solutions to hardware issues; the same is true for application support.

New in Windows 7 is Dynamic Driver Provisioning. Drivers may be stored in a repository separate from the images that will be deployed. Then the drivers may be installed from this repository based on the system's hardware requirements. This feature lowers driver conflicts and speeds up installation and setup times of new computers, an administrator's dream.

Deployment tools and methods have also been improved to ease deployment headaches. The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool has been introduced to provide a centralized location to build and maintain Windows 7 image files. Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer allows for deploying these images from multiple locations, speeding up the deployment time.

Windows Easy Transfer and the User State Migration Tool (USMT) have been improved to assist migrating user profiles, data, and settings from one system to another. Lastly, Windows 7 now supports VHD image management and deployment allowing for deployment of the same VHD image to a virtual or physical computer. This allows for standardization across all Windows 7 systems in your environment.

Windows 7 Desktop Interface

The Windows 7 desktop interface, also known as the graphical user interface (GUI), has been significantly improved. The difference will be more noticeable for end users migrating from Windows XP than Windows Vista as the latter introduced Windows Aero. The Windows 7 user interface will be very familiar to any previous Windows user as it continues to include a Start menu, taskbar, notification area, and desktop. However, most of these features have been changed and improved.

Believe it or not, many of these changes do have end-user productivity in mind as opposed to being purely focused on eye candy. Many end users had significant issues with the changes in the desktop environment from Windows XP to Windows Vista and the migration to Windows 7 will not be any easier. It is extremely important to learn and understand the new Windows 7 desktop environment features and properly educate the end users. As you will see, the planning and preparation process of a Windows 7 deployment is just as important as proper user training and education.

Windows 7 includes more than one user experience option that may be selected through the Themes option of the Personalization console of the Control Panel. These themes allow for different user experiences:

Windows Classic – resembles the Windows 95, 98, ME, and 2000 desktop interface. The Start menu, however, does not have the option for a classic style, it can only be set as far back as the Windows XP Start menu.

Windows Basic and Standard – depending on the edition of Windows 7 and hardware compatibility this is the Windows 7 default user interface without Aero features.

Windows Aero – this is the new and default Windows 7 user experience, edition and hardware allowing. It includes all the Aero features including Glass, Snap, Peek, etc.

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