OK – here’s the scenario.  You work for company that has a few thousand employees.  The standard desktop currently has Windows XP on it.  And you wonder – should I start migrating to Vista now, or should I just wait until Windows 7 is released and deploy that?  After all, Vista got slated in the press but Windows 7 is getting rave reviews – surely that is a better move?

For my money no.  The short answer I give customers today is to ensure that they are buying Software Assurance so they are licensed for Windows 7 when it releases, but start deploying Vista where it adds value today.

There are two may reasons advice.

1. There are features in Vista that some of your users would benefit from today.  Starting your deployment with these low hanging fruit adds immediate value.
2. Your transition to Windows 7 will be eased significantly if you have already rolled out at least some Vista machines.

Lets look at those in more detail.

Add Value for the Low Hanging Fruit

Firstly – let me be clear.  Being a low hanging fruit is in no way a bad thing.  In our company I’m one!  What I mean by this is that there are some features in Vista that add immediate value to some users in most organisations.  For example I am a highly mobile tablet user with some commercially sensitive data on my machine.  As such the improved power management, fast sleep and resume, much improve handwriting recognition and BitLocker are quick wins for users like me in most organisations.

Easing Your Transition to Windows 7

The transition to Windows 7 will be easier from Vista than for Windows XP. Under the hood there was a significant change between Windows XP and Windows Vista.  The change between Windows Vista and Windows 7, however is relatively minor. 

Architectural changes in the operating system lead to driver and application issues.  As the architectural changes are cumulative the jump from XP to Windows 7 is slightly larger than from XP to Vista.  But if you start the transition to Windows Vista now, you can address the application compatibility, driver and hardware issues you will probably have now.  If you get all your applications running on Windows Vista then for the most part they will also run on Windows 7.  With a few exceptions if there is a Vista driver for your hardware it will work on Windows 7.  If your hardware will run Windows Vista it will run Windows 7.

The last point to note is that if you are planning for a Windows 7 deployment you can put  in place Microsoft Deployment Toolkit environment based on the MDT 2010 beta to deploy Vista and use this same infrastructure to deploy Windows 7 when it releases. This would allow you to build the skills to create, maintain and deploy standard builds and these skills would be transferable to your Windows 7 deployment

In Conclusion

Don’t wait.  If you are on Windows XP now, start deploying Vista to those who will benefit most.  This will add immediate value to your business and ease your transition to Windows 7 when it is released.

As I previously mentioned I am putting together a Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) environment to enable me to rebuild my Vista machines at will. 

I now have  a Windows 2008 Server machine running inside of Virtual PC that is a self contained MDT environment.

To do this I had to configure the Server with the following services.

• Active Directory - I promoted it to a domain controller in its own domain.
• DNS - required by AD
• DHCP - to give out addresses, required by WDS.
• Windows Deployment Services (WDS) - this is an optional Windows Component you can add on Windows Server.  WDS responds to network boot PXE requests from clients and sends them a Windows Pre-installation Environment (PE) boot image.
• MDT.

There are a number of other components that MDT needs to be able to deploy anything, but it is ridiculously easy to add these in.  The main management console of MDT is the Deployment Workbench, which contains a node in the navigation pane called components.  Clicking on that shows the current install status of the various things you need and you can download and install them inside the Deployment Workbench.  Click the image below to see what this looks like.

Once all the required software is in place it is a matter of creating a distribution share, adding the OS images (which you can do by right clicking Operating Systems and selecting New..  You then just pop in the CD and follow the prompts in the wizard.) and creating a build.

Another cool thing with MDT is you can import drivers in much the same way as operating systems.  These can be added to the build so that they are inject into the image before the hardware detection takes place, so if you have more recent drivers than those included with Vista you can insert them and it will never load the older driver.  Much cleaner.

To do this you right click on the Out-of-Box drivers node in the Deployment Workbench and select New...  This will launch a driver import wizard.

You fill in a path and optionally assign one or more groups that the drivers will belong to and then click Finish.  MDT will search the directory and any sub directories and import any drivers it finds.  Also by default, when you build your boot image it will include all Network and Storage drivers so that you should have the bare requirements to perform a network install once the Windows PE image boots.

I've got my build going on the Acer laptop I've been testing against to the base OS level with no input required from me beyond pressing F12 to initiate the network boot.  Now it is time to start working on the applications.

The MDT Team has a blog - so if you want to find out more that might be a good place to start.

Two of my machines are in desperate need of a rebuild.  Because it has been on my to-do list for a while I am going to look at Microsoft's updated desktop deployment solution accelerator - the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT).

I have used the previous solution (BDD 2007) to automate Vista builds in the past.  The constraint with BDD was that it could only do the desktop OS. 

MDT is an updated version of BDD that can deploy desktop and server operating systems.  There was a wealth of information in BDD, so I am looking forward to getting hands on with MDT to see what is there.  From the overview blurb:

Microsoft Deployment provides proven tools and practices with which IT professionals can:

• Create a software and hardware inventory to assist in deployment planning.

• Test applications for compatibility with Windows operating systems and mitigate compatibility issues discovered during the process.

• Set up an initial lab environment with imaging and deployment servers.

• Customize, package, and deploy applications.

• Automate image creation and deployment.

• Manage processes and technologies to produce comprehensive and integrated Lite Touch Installation (LTI) and Zero Touch Installation (ZTI) deployments.

• During deployment, migrate users’ documents and settings to their new computer configurations.

• During deployment, Microsoft Deployment supports the installation of all Roles such as Active Directory® Domain Services (AD DS), Domain Name System (DNS) server, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Windows Deployment Services, Windows SharePoint® Services, Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS) server, and Windows Server® 2003 Terminal Services. Additionally, Microsoft Deployment supports the configuration of the AD DS role.

• Ensure that computers are hardened to improve security within the environment.

Microsoft Deployment brings together time-honored and proven practices in addition to the following Microsoft technologies:

• Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0 for gathering application inventory and for testing and mitigating application-compatibility issues

• Windows User State Migration Tool (USMT) for migrating user settings and data

• Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) for configuring unattended Setup answer files (Unattend.xml) and capturing images

• Windows Deployment Services for starting Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) on target computers across the network

• Windows PE 2.0 for starting computers

As I write this I have a new Windows Server 2008 Standard virtual machine installing in Virtual PC that I plan to use as the deployment server.  After that is installed I'll be installing MDT.  Stay tuned.