This article gives an overview of what Windows admins have to know about Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 SP1 and links to useful resources.

Yesterday Microsoft announced that Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 have been released to manufacturing. If you haven’t yet dealt with the service pack, it is now time to inform yourself about it. In this article, I will summarize some basic facts and link to resources where you can get some in-depth information about SP1.

Windows 7 SP1 download

Microsoft partners have already received the SP1. Thus it is quite likely that you can download leaked versions from the Internet. I don’t have to tell you that such unofficial downloads are always risky because they may contain malware. Thus you had better wait until Microsoft offers Windows 7 SP1 for download. The public download will be available on February 22; TechNet and MSDN subscribers will be able to download Windows 7 SP1 on February 16.

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Microsoft released a white paper about the notable changes in Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. In this post I’ve summarized those enhancements. Except for RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory for Windows Server 2008 R2, there is nothing spectacular. However, in some environments some of the enhancements might prevent a few headaches.

Windows 7 SP1 changes

Third-party federation services enhancements

Windows 7 SP1 offers additional support for communication with third-party federation services. The document does not give more details.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) fix

This is not really a new feature but a bug fix. In some cases HDMI audio devices can be lost after system reboots. Windows 7 SP1 should fix this problem.

Printing mixed-orientation XPS documents fix

Windows 7 RTM appears to have problems with printing XPS documents that have both portrait and landscape orientation. Windows 7 SP1 is supposed to solve this problem.

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As the time of this writing more than 500 4sysops readers took part in this poll. I must admit I am a bit surprised about the results. 44% of 4sysops readers already deployed Windows 7 and 26% plan to deploy Windows 7 without the service pack. Only 17% want to wait for SP1, 8% will skip Windows 7, and 5% are undecided.

I only added the option that got the majority of the votes after Lukas complained about the incompleteness of this poll. I never imagined that 44% have already deployed Windows 7 by now. Considering that the Windows 7 market share is now about 10% this number can hardly be representative.

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Perhaps you believe your office is your well-protected castle. You think nobody can access your disks and, because you don’t have laptop users, you don’t need BitLocker disk encryption in your organization. This post provides seven reasons why you are wrong. In my view, hard disk encryption is a must for all PCs in your organization. BitLocker alone justifies the deployment of Windows 7 Enterprise or Ultimate instead of Windows 7 Professional.

1. Confidential data

It is true that the most common use of BitLocker is to protect the data on stolen laptops. Since you are probably an IT pro, you know that anybody can access the data on an unencrypted disk without requiring any passwords by booting up from a second drive. Thus, hard disk encryption is the only way to protect the data on a stolen laptop. However, who says that the disks in your PCs or servers can’t be stolen? Did you ever wonder what a disgruntled employee could do with the easy-to-remove hot-plug hard disks in your servers? If you use RAID, you might not even notice the theft for a while. I suppose, your organization protects all your valuable printed documents in a safe. Do you have the same security precautions for your valuable digital data?

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At first, I wanted to run a poll about your Windows 7 adoption plans. But others have been faster. According to Computerworld’s survey a whopping 72% want to deploy Windows 7 and only 11% will stick with what they know. So the interesting question is not really if but when.

The fact that Windows 7 sells like hot cakes is certainly mostly because many skipped Vista and are now forced to update their IT environment. Many also didn’t replace their hardware for a while because of the bad economic situation. Since the prospects are looking better now, a lot of organizations will start investing again in new PCs and will take the chance to also upgrade to the latest Windows version. The media hype about Windows 7 is probably also a reason why Windows is again everybody’s darling.

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Most news sites reported yesterday that Microsoft announced Windows 7 SP1 (and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1). I didn’t see such an announcement. All I found was a post in Microsoft’s blog titled Talking About Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Well “talking” can hardly count as an announcement. Microsoft neither mentioned a release date nor really told us what new features Windows 7 SP1 will have. There will be an updated RDP client that supports RemoteFX, but I suppose this client will also be available for Vista (and perhaps for XP?).

So what is this talk all about? I attended a Microsoft online meeting for a discussion on SP1 for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, which was a little more revealing. It is interesting to note that no NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) was required as is usually the case when MVPs are invited to such meetings. Obviously, Microsoft wanted IT pros to spread the message. So what was the message? About half of the meeting was used for repeating the central part of this “announcement”: Don’t wait for SP1! Deploy Windows 7 now!

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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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Microsoft's free Windows 7 deployment tools from the WAIK (partly) are essential for every Windows admin: Windows Deployment Services (WDS), Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), User State Migration Tool (USMT), Windows Easy Transfer, Key Management Service (KMS), Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT), Windows 7 Security Compliance Management Toolkit.

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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This article gives an overview of the most important Windows 7 Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) tools: WSIM, ImageX, DISM, Sysprep and Windows PE.

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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This article gives an overview of Microsoft's free Windows 7 deployment tools Windows Optimized Desktop Solution Accelerator, Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 4.0, Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT), and Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

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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