Question: "We’re a medium sized company with five regional sales offices and many mobile reps and home-based employees. Our Windows XP operating system (OS) has served us well up to now, so can you tell us what we stand to gain by going to the effort of upgrading to Windows 7? Will our existing programs work with Windows 7?" - Tony, Chiswick, London

Answer: Hi Tony. We’ve been asked this by several companies like yourselves who’ve held off upgrading their OS until now. I think Walter Mossberg, principal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, answered the question when he wrote: ”In the high-tech world, an eight-year-old operating system is the equivalent of a 20-year-old car. While XP works well for many people, it is relatively weak in areas such as security, networking and other features more important today than when XP was designed around 1999.”

I believe that by moving to Windows 7 you’ll not only make your employees more productive and your data more secure, but also lower the total cost of ownership of your PC estate in the long term. But before I go into more detail, let me first allay any fears you may have about expense, compatibility or disruption to your business.

Painless, inexpensive rollout

Thanks to a more streamlined installation process, early adopters of Windows 7 are telling us that it’s their least troublesome rollout of any OS to date. It also includes two solutions for running your existing programs:

  • The Professional edition has an option to run older applications in what’s called ‘compatibility mode’;
  • A valuable transition tool called Windows XP Mode lets you run many older XP programs from the Start menu or from the Windows 7 taskbar;

Vista owners, meanwhile, can keep all their files, settings and programs in place by simply upgrading to the comparable edition of Windows 7.

For larger organisations requiring higher levels of control, deployment and central administration, there is Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation (MED-V), a core component of the Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack (MDOP) that enables them to upgrade to Windows 7 even when some applications may not yet be functional or supported.

Now to the money. Your finance department will welcome the news that you won’t need to upgrade your computers: Windows 7 actually requires a lower minimum hardware specification than its predecessor. You can run it on PCs with as little as 1GB of RAM- well below today's off-the-shelf hardware specification.

What you'll notice first: saving time on the desktop

With those concerns out of the way, let me now pinpoint some of the benefits you stand to gain by upgrading. Before our developers set about their task, they spent a lot of time getting to know how people really use their computers – in real working situations.

The feedback helped us make the new OS faster, easier to use and a more satisfying experience, so we can all do our jobs more efficiently. We’ve introduced some real advances:

  • a taskbar preview gives an instant view of open documents
  • ‘Jump’ lists save you time accessing documents and websites
  • ‘Snap’ saves you time re-sizing and comparing windows on the desktop
  • Windows Search makes searching the PC as quick as searching the web
  • Federated Search helps find data stored remotely (like SharePoint sites) using Windows Explorer
  • a taskbar icon helps you instantly connect to available wireless networks
  • Windows 7 also supports touch-screens, for simple and enjoyable use on the new generation of Tablets and other touch-based devices.

Gone too are the days of waiting for your computer to warm up. Shorter boot times, faster ‘sleep and resume’, and better memory make for more responsive systems. On top of this, Windows 7 is better placed to make the most of modern hardware such as multi-core processors, making it a future-proofed investment when compared to its predecessors.

Accessing information more securely

Granting access to sensitive customer data to employees working from home or outlying offices is always a challenge. This is where the DirectAccess facility in the Enterprise edition of Windows 7 can be a huge benefit by working with the latest version of Windows Server 2008 to safeguard any centrally-held information your employees may access remotely. There are plenty more tools in Windows 7 to safeguard your data, including:

  • BitLocker and BitLocker to Go: these encrypt the hard drives in your machines; and BitLocker to Go provides the same encryption and password protection policies on removable storage devices like USB sticks.
  • AppLocker puts an end to the worry of users compromising security by running unauthorised software on company-owned machines. By specifying which programs are allowed to run on laptops or desktop PCs, you can control access to sensitive programs and reduce the chances of viruses crippling users’ PCs.

Efficiency, speed and security: a thoroughly modern OS

Finally, it's worth mentioning that Windows 7 is green. You'll enjoy reduced power consumption and lower energy costs. The new OS also contains diagnostic tools to extend the battery life of portable PCs; so laptops will last longer out on the road.

Windows 7 is the ideal next step for a medium sized company like yours. As Walter Mossberg put it: “With Windows 7, PC users will have a strong, modern successor to the sturdy and familiar, but aged, Windows XP.” Not only will Windows 7 simplify the management of your PCs and reduce your TCO, it will also make your employees more productive - whether they are working from HQ, out on the road or from home.

I hope this helps, but if you have any further questions, do contact a Microsoft Partner who will be able to give you plenty more advice, tailored to the needs of your own business.

To learn more about the combination of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 bringing you virtualisation, BranchCache and a richer experience for remote access click here.

--Laurence.

“Windows 7 uses far fewer resources than previous versions of Windows. It’s also much more intuitive for users, making them more productive. Add to that the ease of migrating applications from Windows Vista and you have an Enterprise level operating system for the masses.”
Stephen Allen, Senior Systems Engineer, Data Systems (Computers) Ltd.

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