Five Tips For Deploying Windows 7 – Real World Case Study - BMW

"BMW, with over 85,000 employees worldwide, deployed Windows 7 to 500 employees in 2009 and expects to increase that to 5000 users by October 2010, with a view to have all 85,000 employees using Windows 7 by late 2011.

Being an early adopter and migrating that many people from eight-year-old Windows XP to Windows 7 is a monumental task, but one that many enterprises now face. At BMW, Bernhard Huber is taking a deliberate and systematic approach to Windows 7 deployments, rolling it out in phases.

IT executive Bernhard Huber, offers five tips below for deploying Windows 7 within your organisation:


1. Make application compatibility the first priority. Your first step should be to figure out which applications to run natively on Windows 7, which to run using the Application Toolkit and which to run using technologies such as App-V or Med-V, Huber says. App-V and Med-V are two virtualization technologies included in MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack), Microsoft's desktop software suite for SA (software assurance) customers designed to help manage enterprise IT environments.

2. Use SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) for image creation and deployment. SCCM is Microsoft's systems software for managing groups of Windows PCs, and in addition to aiding with operating system deployment, SCCM provides remote control, patch management, software distribution, and hardware and software inventory.

3. Start with basic group policy settings but then update. After basic policies are set, Huber underscores that enterprise IT managers can update group policies (rules administered by IT about what users can and can't do on a company's network) easier through another MDOP technology called AGPM (Advanced Group Policy Management). AGPM allows IT managers to develop, review, and modify group policies without affecting employee desktops.

4. Work with ISVs early and often. For the most critical application compatibility, Huber says to get in contact with the ISV (independent software provider) at the beginning of the planning phase and express the necessity that their applications be compatible with Windows 7.

5. Align Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 deployment timing. Microsoft has been extolling the "better together" benefits of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Huber says that deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 will help his company leverage "the full potential of Windows 7." Two desirable networking features for Huber that require both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are DirectAccess, a networking tool that eliminates the need for a VPN (virtual private network), and BranchCache, which speeds up networks in remote offices by caching files locally."

*This article was originally published cio.com.au. This article has been edited for the purpose of this blog.