Windows Operating System Migration

The Information Technology department has, since its beta release, been evaluating the feasibility and practicality of migrating to the Windows Vista Enterprise (Vista) operating system in preparation for a campus-wide migration. Due to concerns related to migration costs, hardware upgrades, security issues and some initial legacy application compatibility, along with market place poor reviews, the IT department decided to delay the Vista migration until these outstanding issues were resolved.

After additional review, it became the position of the IT Department that although there were many new features in Microsoft Vista, these features did not offer a compelling argument to migrate to Vista and that Microsoft XP would continue to be the best viable option at that time. Due to these concerns with Microsoft Vista it was decided to cancel the migration to Vista and wait to see what the next version would provide.

The IT department has since been doing testing and evaluation of the Windows 7 release that will be officially released by the end of October 2009. The kernel of this new release has seen some extensive improvements over the Vista release. It has returned some very positive results in our testing along with the positive reviews from enterprise sectors in the market place which would be comparable to our environment.

Vista, which was to be the successor to XP, has largely failed in that job within enterprises; Microsoft is now banking on Windows 7 to be what Vista could not, a replacement for XP.

Some of the major benefits to Kettering in upgrading to Windows 7 are:

  • More comprehensive security
  • Less resource intensive than Vista with greater processing efficiency
  • Better diagnostic tools
  • Easier upgradability
  • Less prone to operating system failures

View a more comprehensive list of features found in Windows 7.

While the IT department continues to test and evaluate Windows 7, it will be running some pilot projects as a final step for certification and deployment. At the conclusion of these pilots, tentatively scheduled to end by March 31, 2010, the official migration will be started.

Stay tuned to the IT website for future updates and details of the migration methodology.

Below are 2 Microsoft links providing additional information on some of the new features found in the Windows 7 operating system.