This is the fourth and final installment of this series from Jeremy Chapman

After user targeting and planning is complete, you can start your Proof of Concept testing and begin building Windows 7 images. There are many ways to build Windows 7 images or standard builds and depending on the tools you have in place, you may want to test a couple of options. For organizations with System Center Configuration Manager 2007, you can use that to create standard Windows builds with complete automation of OS, applications, drivers, data and profile migration, etc. If you won’t have Configuration Manager available for the pilot, you can download the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to create standard builds with similar automation capabilities to Configuration Manager. The main difference is that with Configuration Manager, you do not need to initiate the installation at the target PC, with MDT, you do need to initiate it. Both of these solutions use the Windows Automated Installation Kit components at their core to create and service images, migrate user state and activate Windows. They also use Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2008 R2 for network-based deployments or they can use media (USB flash and DVD) to install builds at target computers. My simple recommendation is to use Configuration Manager if you have it, if not use MDT.

Is Configuration Manager or MDT Overkill for a Pilot?

You might be thinking that Configuration Manager or MDT is too much to learn compared to a straight thick image (Windows plus all of your applications and drivers) and standing up Windows Deployment Services. I have seen this and heard this before. The problem is that habits start early on and if you invest a lot of time into a thick image and refining the straight Windows Deployment Services, Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) and any additional scripting work, you’ll probably end up either with multiple images to manage and may not be taking advantage of the improvements in Windows 7 for imaging and deployment made since Windows XP – namely Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) independence, multi-language support, offline image servicing and better in-box driver coverage or you may reinvent the wheel and create your own version of a deployment task sequence engine like the one shared by Configuration Manager and MDT in-box.

There are other advantages to using a task-sequence-based deployment that Configuration Manager or MDT can provide – especially when it comes to things like computer naming, the ability to install applications based on user needs, integration with the user state migration tool processes to migrate user data, domain joining, ability to enable Bitlocker, custom locale and keyboard settings per user, language definition per user and so on. The flexibility that these tools provide can improve the thoroughness of the pilot testing – since you can test more configurations – and any work you do to make your applications install silently via a task sequence and not baked into a thick image can be re-used with ongoing software distribution in the future. I’ve seen many people get MDT up and running in a day or less, so if you fought with Business Desktop Deployment 2.0 and its scripting back with your Windows XP deployment in 2004/2005, I’d encourage you to look at MDT now re-evaluate it – even at the pilot stage.

The last area I want to hit on here is activation. For Windows 7, there are two primary ways to activate Volume License versions of Windows. Multiple Activation Keys (MAK) or Key Management Service (KMS) are used once the client comes up and is either connected to the Internet (MAK) or connected to the domain (KMS). KMS runs on a server in your environment and will automatically activate clients for you. With KMS, you own the activation process and traffic; the PCs do not hit a Microsoft activation service on the Internet. With MAK, it is similar to retail activation and the PC hits a Microsoft server to activate over the Internet. To use KMS, you need 25 clients to hit the service, so typically you start with MAK for the first 25 PCs, then you convert their activation type to use KMS after you cross the 25 threshold (virtual machines can also be used against this threshold now). KMS is the recommended way to activate Volume License clients because you do not need to worry about managing keys in your imaging or unattended build process and your infrastructure manages the activation. You can find more information about Volume Activation on Microsoft TechNet.

Rolling Out Desktops and Collecting Feedback

Once you have your strategy in place for delivering desktops (hopefully it doesn’t involve sneakers and a case of DVDs – aka manual installation work), then you can start rolling out desktops. In Proof of Concept, you are typically targeting the lab and IT department staff first. Once you’ve worked in their feedback and feel confident about letting your custom builds loose into the wild, you can begin with Phase 2 and rolling out to end users. If you take away anything from this series, remember to start small and grow your pilot user count based on your confidence level, support activities, user demand and any other indicator of pilot capacity.

Generally speaking, no news is good news when piloting. Sometimes you need to work to collect feedback and other times it will come to you very quickly, especially if something isn’t working and is impacting multiple users. Be prepared to hear about things like applications not working correctly, the Web browser not rendering pages like it used to, printers not being configured, hardware not getting recognized or working and people not finding the old functions they used to have in the old – often customized – operating system. If you are coming from an environment where users had full administrative privilege, then expect some questions around User Account Control prompts or other configuration management features. Much of the feedback you’ll receive will be in response to Windows working by design, but others will require work or workarounds.

Architectural changes like going from 32-bit to 64-bit will impact older 16 bit applications (they won’t install or run) and non-standard devices with unsigned drivers (they won’t work). Moving users from administrative account privileges to standard user account privileges will have another set of challenges, if uses are accustomed to administering their machine. The payoff in the long run will be worth it, but expect to get some helpdesk calls even if you use due diligence to inform users of the change.

To handle communications to and from users, there are several tactics that can be used. In most cases, you will want to implement an Intranet portal to allow users to submit feedback and also have helpdesk staff trained for telephone calls or instant message-based support. In addition, proactive meetings and open forums with pilot users are recommended to get as much feedback as possible on all areas of the pilot, its processes and the software being tested.

There are many tactics to get people involved and the ones I have seen work both within Microsoft and at other companies are:

• Having an executive sponsor. This is vital to a good pilot, as the executive sponsor can help with areas of budget and organizational challenges, plus let’s face it, sometimes users tune out to emails coming from the IT department whereas they may react more quickly to emails coming from an executive sponsor.
• Identifying Pilot Group Leaders. These are people with a true pulse on how others are feeling about the pilot, the process itself and the software they are testing for you. Group leaders interact with pilot users on a regular working basis and hear the good and bad aspects – often getting information not sent to the helpdesk. As an information aggregator, they also reduce can help the communication traffic required to each pilot users
• Staying up-to-date with how people communicate. With so many communication channels available, you’ll want to stay up-to-date with communications to and from users. This might mean using social networking portals, email, in-person meetings, group calls, videos, etc. It usually isn’t enough to bury a pilot group RSS feed into your standard email client configuration or build an Intranet portal – users still may not consume the information.
• Communicating and requesting feedback often. This might seem counter-intuitive if you want to minimize helpdesk activities (especially for those outsourcing the helpdesk), but if you open up other less expensive channels, you can prompt pilot users for frequent feedback and ultimately collect more data to prepare for the production deployment.

These are just a few tactics to get users involved and there are many more. Other tactics like user recognition for the most bugs filed, group morale events and pilot program branded swag have been used with high degrees of success as well. If you are in a constant state of piloting something like I was, these tactics can be applied to anything you are piloting – not just a Windows pilot.

Analyzing User Feedback

There are both reactive and proactive phases to handling user feedback. As feedback comes in, you will want to perform initial triage of the feedback. Remember the severity levels I defined in Part 2[j1] of this series? These severity levels will help indicate how quickly you need to respond and how critical a fix is. Also, you will find patterns for feedback and duplication of feedback. It is important to keep a count of the duplicate issues or trouble tickets to gauge how many people are impacted. Based on severity and number of users impacted, you can decide how you go about addressing issues – or if you address them at all. Some issues will be technology-related, others will be based on lack of user training and others will be cultural in nature. Despite the nature of the issues, all of these categories are addressable before the production deployment.

Before we defined severity levels in Part 2, we also defined areas to validate the technology and associated processes, then we talked about quality gates to proceed from phase-to-phase. Part of your analysis will be checking whether validation and quality goals were met, if not, you may need to continue the pilot and push out your schedules a bit to ensure that you have enough information and quality to proceed into the production deployment.

Finally, there are business aspects to measure. Will the technology meet business objectives? Have we identified ways to minimize user disruption? Do we have a plan to train users sufficiently and proactively manage the issues we know will come up in the production deployment? All of these should be answered and your executive sponsors will be keen on knowing the work already performed, current status and what is planned to correct any outstanding issues. The pilot is only complete when you have enough information to proceed with a go/no-go decision and that are confident in your abilities to deliver the new technology to a broader set of users.

This was the final part in the Windows 7 Pilot series. Thanks for reading and please comment on additional content you’d like to see covered.

Happy piloting,

Jeremy Chapman

The following models have received the logo:

• AVR-4310CI
• AVR-3310CI
• AVR-990
• AVR-4810CI (recently released and shown above)
• ASD-51W
• ASD-51N

Denon has also said that their new A/V receivers, scheduled to be announced in 2010, will also carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo.

As you’re building your stereo system at home or looking to update an existing stereo system, you should definitely consider A/V receivers such as Denon’s models that carry the Compatible with Windows 7 logo. That means these receivers work great and can take advantage of Windows 7. For example if one of the Denon receiver models above powers your stereo system at home, you can use Windows 7’s Play To feature to streaming your music to your stereo system over your home network.

Denon’s A/V receivers with the Compatible with Windows 7 logo come with built-in Ethernet and wireless allowing the unit to connect right up to your wireless network.

Because Denon’s units are not just audio receivers but video receivers too, one of their devices connected through HDMI to a HDTV can receive HD video streamed from any one of your Windows 7 PCs in your home using Play To.

Cutting costs and being more productive are top of mind for all of us, including small business owners who had to hunker down over the past couple of years. As a result, many are now faced with aging hardware that doesn’t meet the demands of today’s business environment. Small business owners are ready for new PCs but are wondering if now is the right time to make that investment.

Market research firm Techaisle conducted a survey with 1000 small businesses in the US, UK, China, Brazil and India, funded in part by Microsoft and Intel, and found that having older PCs negatively impact small businesses in several ways, including productivity and maintenance costs. What’s more, the study found that 40 percent of PCs in small businesses are more than 3 years old, and many are still running Windows XP (which was released about a decade ago and whose support is about to end.)

Techaisle’s research showed that there are five main ways small businesses can benefit from newer PCs, including better security, improved productivity (40% less downtime than older PCs,) often 1.5 times less costly to maintain, they can take advantage of newer applications and enhanced support – all benefits that should save small businesses real time and money.

Looking at specific hardware and software innovations that help make new PCs more efficient and the people that use them more productive, Techaisle pointed out the benefits such as improved graphics, energy efficiency and wireless communication in PCs with faster, multicore processors, including those in Intel’s 2010 Core vPro processor family. Techaisle suggested upgrading to Microsoft’s Windows 7, in particular Windows 7 Professional, rather than Home Premium, for its advantages in stability, security, collaboration, manageability and compatibility with older applications.

We’re glad to see these benefits coming through for small businesses because they helped us build Windows 7 Professional and identify the benefits that mattered most on a variety of new business PCs. Our passion is helping small businesses thrive – we encourage small businesses to go to our Windows for Small and Midsize Businesses site to learn more about Windows 7 Professional.

And if you’re wondering where to find out about the new, hot business PCs available out there – check out our blogs on Dell’s new Vostro 3000 (announced today!), HP’s new PCs for businesses, and Lenovo’s new ThinkPads.

We also want to hear from you how we can take your technology experience to the next level for your business – drop us a note!

The new thin, lightweight and durable laptop computers feature powerful processors, high-end graphics and built-in security, and are designed for small businesses; helping them stretch their budget and protect their data, and come with dedicated small business services and support to keep a small businesses moving.

Vostro 3000 series consists of a 17” model (Vostro 3700), a 15” model (Vostro 3500), a 14” model (Vostro 3400), and a 13” model (Vostro 3300). And they come packing quite a “punch”.

The Vostro 3000 series will come with the latest Intel Core processors, including, the optional the quad-core Intel Core i7 processor available on the Vostro 3700. The Vostro 3300 is one of the thinnest commercial 13” laptops with an integrated optical drive. And the Vostro 3400 can offer up to a full day of productivity while “out-and-about” with up to 8 hours (based on lab testing and could vary by configuration) of battery life with an optional 9-cell battery. The Vostro 3700, 3500, and 3400 can come with an optional high-definition WLED screen and the 3700 offers up to 1GB NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics.

All of the Vostro 3000 series PCs ship with built-in microphones and webcams as well, a full range of wireless options including 802.11g/n, Bluetooth, and mobile broadband. Oh and Dell is also offering an optional fingerprint reader too!

For more information on the new Vostro 3000 Series Windows PCs, see this blog post on Direct2Dell by Alex Gruzen, Senior Vice President for Dell Consumer and SMB. More photos of the Vostro 3000 Series can be seen here on Dell’s Flickr page.

The Vostro 3000 Series of Windows PCs look to be a powerful family of business-class PCs perfect for the small business user.

We’d love to see you at MIX, but if you can’t make it, all the sessions will be streamed over at http://live.visitmix.com/ We’ll also have content making it over to Channel9 over the course of next week.

I hope to see you at MIX!

@ai

The SmartScreen Filter uses a special URL Reputation Service (URS) with data centers hosted around the world and has evaluated over 250 billion URLs to help keep Internet Explorer 8 users safe! Every day, the SmartScreen Filter URS processes about 4.1 billion URLs looking for malicious websites and files; and since it was first introduced in Internet Explorer 7, the URS has processed over 5.7 trillion requests!

Malware is the biggest and most common security threat facing people browsing the Internet today, and Microsoft is investing heavily in keeping people protected while using Internet Explorer with features like the SmartScreen Filter, Protected Mode, DEP, and more. Check out this post on the IEBlog for more info about the NSS Labs study and how to make sure the SmartScreen Filter is turned on. If you’re not already running Internet Explorer 8, or haven’t upgraded, this is a great reason!

Now, with the new creation of our Windows Home Server videos, we have made our very own Windows Home Server channel on YouTube. On the channel, you will find variety of different videos including:

• Team interviews – learn about Windows Home Server’s team members and how they use the product in their day-to-day lives.
• Windows Home Server overviews – if you are still learning about Windows Home Server, watch an overview on how it can beneficial in your home or even a small business.
• Informational how-to screen casts – each how-to video will show you how to use various features of Windows Home Server.  

Be sure to subscribe to the channel so that you can watch all of our newly added videos!

-Nicole

This is the place. Subscribe to this feed to get deep technical information on the tools, platform capabilities, and so forth. We’ll be linking to other blogs and content sites as well. We’ll do our best to keep away from marketing spiel and instead focus on great technical conversations.

On twitter we are @wp7dev.  We use #wp7dev to track twitter conversations on the platform.

Here are a set great blogs from some of the team members you’ll be getting to know:

	Charlie Kindel Topics: Everything Blog: blogs.msdn.com/ckindel Twitter: @ckindel
	Andre Vrignaud Topics: Multi-screen gaming Blog: www.ozymandias.com Twitter: @ozymandias
	Christian Schormann Topics: User experience design Blog: electricbeach.org Twitter: @cschormann
	Shawn Hargreaves Topics: Game design Blog: blogs.msdn.com/shawnhar  Twitter:  @shawnhargreaves
	Todd Brix: Topics: Marketplace Blog: windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsphone   Twitter: @toddbrix
	Anand Iyer Topics: Mobile social media Blog: www.artificialignorance.net/blog Twitter: @ai
	Michael Klucher Topics: Game development Blog: klucher.com Twitter: @mklucher

-cek

The short answer is, no.

In no way does today’s EBS announcement impact Windows Small Business Server, Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2008 and R2. 

Our decision to discontinue future plans for Windows Essential Business Server was based on several factors, but most notably in response to midsize businesses making a rapid shift towards technologies such as management, virtualization and cloud computing as a means to cut costs, improve efficiency, and increase competitiveness.  As it happens, those technologies are offered today through other Microsoft solutions, and midsized customers are adopting them, including Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Exchange Server, and the Microsoft Business productivity Online Suite (BPOS). 

We believe that streamlining our server product portfolio will provide clarity for customers and partners to determine which option might be right for them.

Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses. EBS customers can look forward to continued support and a number of options for continuing with EBS or transitioning to other technologies.

For more information, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/ebs.