Now that you have an overview of the Windows 7 deployment tools, it is time to learn more Windows 7 deployment. In this post, I’ve collected my favorite Windows 7 deployment resources. If you know of other good articles on the web, feel free to link to them in a comment below.

Single PC migrations

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 is a rather long-winded process. As you might know, you can’t just pop in the Windows 7 DVD and upgrade an existing XP installation. In my view, in most cases it is better to start with a clean installation anyway. This video tutorial explains in detail how to perform the upgrade. You should print the printed version of the tutorial before you start the upgrade process because your PC will restart during the upgrade. Don’t forget to copy your data files to an external drive before you begin.

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Once you have planned your Windows 7 deployment and prepared your Windows 7 master images with their answer files, you are ready to deliver the images to your PCs. This article gives an overview of Microsoft’s free Windows 7 installation tools.

Windows Deployment Services (WDS)

WDS is one of the major enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and is also available for Windows Server 2003 SP2. This tool enables small and mid-sized organizations to deploy Windows. Its main limitations compared to more sophisticated commercial deployment tools are that you can only install Windows remotely within a subnet (see discussion below) and that it lacks scheduling features, and supervision capabilities. I reviewed the Windows Server 2008 WDS a while back. The Windows Server 2008 R2 version comes with the following improvements: dynamic driver provisioning, Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) deployment, additional multicast functionality, PXE provider for Transport Server, and additional EFI functionality.

Learn more | Download

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In my last article I introduced those free Microsoft’s deployment tools that help you plan Windows 7 deployment. Today, I will give you an overview of the tools that you can use to prepare the image of your Windows 7 master installation. The most important tool collection certainly is the Windows Automated Installation Kit. This kit is usually abbreviated as WAIK, but in Microsoft’s documentation it is called Windows AIK. The first four tools described in this article are most essential. The WAIK contains a few additional useful command line tools, such as BCDboot (set up a system partition) and DrvLoad (adds out-of-box drivers to a booted Windows PE image), but I don’t discuss them here. I will discuss the WAIK’s installation tools in part 3.

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Microsoft has created a remarkable collection of free deployment tools for Windows 7. If the last OS you deployed was Windows XP, which was released nine years ago, then you might be interested in knowing about the available technology that helps you get rid of this hopelessly outdated operating system. In this post I will give you a short description of all Windows deployment tools that help you plan installations and evaluate hardware and software compatibility. In the next post I will discuss tools to prepare the Windows 7 master image. In the final post of this series I will introduce Microsoft’s free utilities to deliver the OS image—that is, install Windows 7 on your network.

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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from ZDNet believes there are seven reasons to stick with Windows XP. I would like to express my opinion about each of his claims in this post. But first read this warning: If you are a Windows XP fan and dislike sarcastic rants, you had better not only skip Windows 7 but also this article.

Okay, you obviously ignored my warning. So let me first raise your adrenalin level a little before we tear each of Kingsley-Hughes’ points into pieces.

I have already outlined that skipping an operating system version is a mistake in most cases. I know that a large number of admins are “skippers”. And it’s no wonder. Admins tend to be overworked, and operating system upgrades usually just mean more stress for a certain time period. That’s why they easily fall for such false arguments as those presented in this ZDNet article. The fact that the majority of the readers voted for this article proves it. Telling your boss that you don’t like to upgrade to a new operating system because you don’t want to work more for a certain time period is probably not the smartest thing to do. But repeating “arguments” published in a well-known magazine that even your boss finds appealing might foster your career and your leisure time as well.

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In my last post, I gave an overview of the new Windows Troubleshooting Platform. Today, I will discuss the limitations of this new Windows 7 feature.

With this Platform, users won’t allegedly be bothering you any more with trivial issues so you can focus on the more interesting stuff, and CIOs can save costs by reducing help desk staff. It all sounds too good to be true. Unfortunately, these implicit promises in Microsoft’s paper are a bit exaggerated, at least in my experiences with the Windows 7 Troubleshooting Platform.

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One of the new but rarely discussed Windows 7 features is the Troubleshooting Platform. Troubleshooting is usually the job of Windows admins, and so I took a closer look at this new Windows component. The introduction in Microsoft’s white paper sounds quite promising:

For many information workers and IT professionals, solving computer problems feels like nothing more than trial and error. It can be frustrating for users to try to solve their problems, but it can be expensive for corporations to maintain a fully staffed support center. To compound the problem, many support calls involve routine, recurring issues.

Windows® 7 takes steps to address both of these problems with the Windows Troubleshooting Platform, which allows users to solve many common problems on their own and improves Help desk efficiency by allowing IT administrators to extend the platform to solve routine issues that are specific to their environment.

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When the first article with the title “Windows 7 GodMode” appeared in my RSS reader, I didn’t even click it because I already suspected that this was just another blog post that tries to attract attention at any costs. But now, as almost all major news sites reported about this super secret and super powerful Windows 7 feature, I also have to say a word or two about it. Of course, there is no such mode in Windows 7 that would justify the involvement of the term “God” by any means. This “God Mode” is nothing else than an undocumented folder that allows you to access certain Windows configuration applets directly. This just saves you some time because you don’t have to navigate through the Control Panel to reach the corresponding function.

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In my last post, I explained how you can provision Active Directory to offline domain join a computer. Doing this for one computer is one thing; deploying a large number of computers which are already domain members when they boot up the first time is another thing.

It is possible to offline domain join a computer in an unattended installation. For this, you have to perform the two steps I outlined in my last post, i.e., create the computer accounts in your domain and the blob that contain the meta data. Then, you can add the following section to the unattend.xml:

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One of the interesting features of the new Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 is the possibility of performing an offline domain join of computers with the command line tool djoin.exe. Here, offline means that there is no network connection to the Active Directory at the time when the client joins the domain. I tried the tool and was a little disappointed because its handling in large environments seems to be a bit cumbersome to me. In this post, I will give you a short introduction into djoin’s usage and in my next post, I will discuss possible usage scenarios.

Requirements

Djoin comes with every Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 installation. You don’t have to raise the functional level of the Active Directory domain to Windows Server R2, and you don’t need an R2 domain controller since djoin also works with earlier domain controller versions. Because Djoin requires administrator privileges, you have to use the tool on an elevated command prompt. Of course, you also need an account that has sufficient rights to create domain computer accounts.

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Well, as we move from theory to practise, our first batch of Windows 7 machines has been deployed and rolled out into the production environment, and so far so very, very good. Microsoft has done a very impressive job with its newest suite of client and server products, and our deployment is being managed end-to-end with no third-party products required.

I thought this would be an opportune time to document some of the problems I’ve encountered so far in the build of our Windows 7 Standard Operating Environment (SOE). Given that we are moving from a Windows XP/Novell Netware environment, there are a whole raft of changes happening as well as having to deal with problems which were lurking behind the scenes, and that’s what I’ll talk about today.

One of our critical line-of-business applications is an authoritative administration/HR system, with a locally-installed GUI application which talks back to a SQL database. The database is hosted on SQL Server 2005 SP3 x64 which sits on a Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 system. We started noticing that on the Windows 7 machines, the local GUI took forever to talk back to the SQL database. There were no error messages (irritatingly) but performance was so slow as to be unusable.

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Windows 7 Federated Search is a new feature that allows users to search remote repositories using Windows Explorer. In earlier Windows versions, the repository has to run Windows Search, but thanks to the support of OpenSearch in Windows 7, you can now integrate any website or web service into your desktop search environment.

To demonstrate how easy it is, I have created an OpenSearch connector for 4sysops. After you have downloaded the OSDX file (right click to save the file), you have to double click it. Windows will ask you if you want to add this search connector. Of course ! Windows Explorer will then display a new shortcut named “4sysops”in the Favorites section in the navigation pane. To search 4sysops, you can now use the Windows Explorer if you click on this icon.

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These days there are quite a few types of computers which don’t have an optical drive built in. For the average user this is no great loss. Today Software is downloaded and not bought on a CD or DVD anymore. Also the CD has lost its popularity for exchanging data, people use the Internet or USB sticks. However, there is one big drawback for PCs without optical drives: For installing an OS you need to boot from the installation media. Without an optical drive you run into problems, because USB sticks aren’t bootable by default and installing from a network is quite a hassle.

So you either have to buy an external DVD drive or you make your USB stick bootable and copy the ISO image on it. As nobody wants to spend 60 bucks on buying an external DVD drive just for installing their shiny new OS most prefer the second option. Manually making the USB stick bootable is a pain though. Fortunately there are some applications available which exactly do that for you.

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Many people are playing with Windows 7 these days, and so new tips to make your work more efficient are popping up every day on the web. In this post, I will share the seven tips I found most useful for my work with Windows 7.

1 Drag and drop to the command prompt

Daniel Petri discovered that drag and drop to the command prompt is back in Windows 7. This allows you to copy a file’s path to the command prompt.

2 Pin files to a taskbar button

Paul Thurrott mentioned this tip. To associate a file with a certain application, you can drag and drop its icon to the corresponding taskbar button. You can then open this file from the app’s Jumplist.

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In my last post, I discussed the typical arguments when it comes to the question of whether it is justified to skip Windows 7. Today I will put forward three somewhat unusual arguments that are, in my view, even more decisive.

My last argument was that the new Windows 7 features will increase overall user productivity. However, the mere practical effect of the new features is only one side of the coin when it comes to productivity. On the other side is the often underestimated user motivation.

5 Motivation

It is true that some users are reluctant to learn new things and hope to keep their current OS as long as possible. But I’m guessing they’re not the most productive ones in your organization anyway. On the other hand, those users who are open to changes probably will have Windows 7 on their private PCs soon. It will certainly have a negative effect on their motivation, if you give them outdated equipment at work. Would you want to work in an office with furniture that hasn’t been replaced for the last 20 years?

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