Microsoft has just taken the wraps off the latest client
operating system, Windows® 7. The first
point to note—this is a pre-beta release, and is still an early first-look.
While most information out there will focus on how Windows 7 makes everyday
tasks easier, with improved user experience and productivity scenarios for end
users, we thought we’d focus on information specifically of interest to IT
professionals.
Built on the foundation of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
To begin with, the core architecture of Windows 7 remains
the same, as it is built on same foundation as Windows Server® 2008 and Windows
Vista®. This ensures that almost all
PCs, applications and devices that are compatible with Windows Vista will
retain their compatibility with Windows 7. This is important if you are
evaluating or deploying Windows Vista today; there is no reason to hold off and
wait for Windows 7. In fact, investments
in adopting Windows Vista (testing piloting, deploying) will pay off in a
smoother transition to Windows 7 when it becomes available.
So what’s new in Windows 7?
In designing Windows 7, the engineering team had a clear
focus on what we call ‘the fundamentals'—performance, application
compatibility, device compatibility, reliability, security and battery
life. This effort was aided by telemetry
data on how PCs are being used and issues that resulted in poor performance or
disruption. The focus on fundamentals
didn’t start with Windows 7; in fact it is the continuation of the work on
Windows Vista that materialized in Service Pack 1. While the first release of Windows Vista
faced challenges with hardware and application compatibility, improvements
introduced in SP1 and a maturing of the ecosystem has helped alleviate these
issues.
Most important to IT pros will be enhancements to
manageability and security—how it impacts your day-to-day work. Like Windows Vista, Windows 7 is engineered
to make managing a PC environment more automated, controllable and
efficient. Both client operating systems
bring tools and monitoring capabilities that are not available in a Windows XP
environment.
Further, Windows 7 imaging builds on the fundamental
improvements made in Windows Vista, adding enumeration and driver management
features. Data migration is faster and more flexible with a new ‘Hardlink’
feature, along with Offline Migration support.
Manageability
When we speak with IT pros, we usually hear about the pains
you face maintaining a standard configuration and preventing end users from
adding unauthorized software and hardware.
In addition, for remote laptop PCs that spend most of their time off the
corporate network, administering patches and updates is challenging and
unreliable.
- In Windows Vista, the User Account Control (UAC)
feature enabled more organizations to set their users to standard user mode,
preventing unauthorized changes to the basic configuration.Windows Vista also added significantly more
parameters that are manageable with Group Policy.
- In Windows 7, these two technologies advance
further, with a customizable UAC that can be tuned to reduce the number of
elevation prompts, if that is appropriate for the environment.
- Group Policy Preferences also extend the reach
of what Group Policy can manage, and how settings are applied to specific users
or computers, including non-GP aware components.
- Updating mobile PCs that spend most of their
time off the network is a particularly challenging issue for IT
organizations.Windows 7 will introduce
DirectAccess, a capability that allows management and updating of
internet-connected remote PCs, even when they are off the corporate network.
- For IT pros who are less than comfortable in a
command-line scripting environment, the new Powershell v2 and its graphical
editor help automate repetitive tasks with minimal development expertise.
Security and Compliance
Security is one of those evergreen issues in IT management,
and Regulatory Compliance is becoming a greater challenge with regulation
expansion around the world. While
significant advancements in PC security were made with Windows XP SP2,
nefarious innovations in malware and social engineering means PCs are still
prone to disruptive threats.
Additionally, implementing regulatory compliance policy—especially
protecting confidential data on mobile PCs—is a particular challenge.
Windows Vista introduced an architecture model that improved
security by limiting changes that could be made to the registry without
administrative credentials, while providing more instances where users could be
deployed in standard user mode. UAC
helped protect PCs, but in the short term it caused some disruption because
applications needed to avoid performing certain tasks, such as writing to the
registry or writing data to protected folders.
With SP1 a maturing ecosystem and in some cases the creative use of
“shims,” most application compatibility issues have been resolved, while
providing this added level of protection.
The introduction of BitLocker Drive Encryption in Windows
Vista, and the extension of this protection to non-boot volumes in SP1 provided
the higher degree of confidential data protection required in many
industries.
Windows 7 builds on these advancements with a customizable
User Account Control that allows IT pros to “tune” the feature based on their
environment; for those instances where more flexibility is granted to users,
fewer elevation prompts will appear.
Conversely, in environments that require greater control over the IT
infrastructure, UAC can be strengthened to minimize the changes a user can
make.
For data protection, Windows 7 introduces BitLocker ToGo™, extending encryption to
removable drives. This feature gives
greater control over information leaving the corporation, as well as helping to
protect lost or stolen USB drives.
Windows 7 also incorporates improvements to the Firewall
Profiles and allows IT to control access to specific applications by specific
users, but we’ll cover these in more detail in future articles.
Deployment
Windows Vista introduced Windows Imaging Format (WIM),
allowing a hardware and language-independent image to be created and
deployed. In many instances, a single
image could be deployed and maintained worldwide, providing a more predictable
environment. Several new tools, including
the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, the Application Compatibility Toolkit, and
Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit helped streamline the planning,
testing and deployment of a large-scale deployment.
In Windows 7, image creation and deployment is enhanced with
advances such as Dynamic Driver Provisioning, the Deployment Image Service and
Management tool, Multicast Multiple Stream Transfer, and improvements to user
state migration. We’ll go into further
detail in future Springboard Series articles, so check back frequently.
Summary
Windows 7 promises advancements in manageability, security,
deployment and end user productivity. Does this mean you should wait or
skip? The fact is that you can get the
many of the advantages today in Windows Vista. While the original release of
Windows Vista ran into application and hardware compatibility issues, much
progress has been made with Windows Vista SP1 and a maturing ecosystem, and
this progress continues in Windows 7.
If your organization hasn’t begun looking seriously at
Windows Vista, or you evaluated Windows Vista prior to SP1 and found too many
challenges, it now makes sense to re-evaluate—both to benefit from more
advanced PC environment, and to get ahead of the adoption curve for Windows 7.
To learn more about Windows 7, Windows Vista or any of the
Windows Client technologies, please visit www.microsoft.com/springboard
for the latest in information, guidance and community connections.
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