Win 7 deployments - who's "doing it" then?

[TheCrust]

Now Windows 7 has been on release to Software Assurance customers for a fortnight or so, and there's been the Education Event at Reading (which I couldn't make because I was too busy trying - with some futility I noticed - to beat Richards!) who here has deployed - or is in the process of deploying - Windows 7 to their networks this summer?

 

I know Alan @ West Hatch has, and I completed my own desktop deployment earlier today.

 

So, who else is in the process of deployment or has completed already?

[Crispin]

We're waiting til our new native server 2008 setup is done and dusted before moving into Win7. I'm rather jealous of those that are.

 

Hopefully this winter we'll do a suite or two...

[DrCheese]

I'd love to move to it, but until our software is officially supported (Sims/Sophos) I'm kinda stuck. It doesn't stop us preparing for it tho.

We've moved to 2008 R2 on our Domain controllers.

[Gatt]

We've done it - though until WSUS SP2 is released its caused a few problems as some PCs arent getting driver updates (sodding Sysprep's Generalize)

 

Very easy and no issues as we did have with Vista..

 

Only software that doesnt run is FMS, though solved this by using RemoteApps...

[john]

Very envious of the AAARGHs from teaching staff on day one of term.

 

I am looking and thinking hard about a Christmas roll out, would be very interesting, need to try the range of our hardware.

 

Anyone got it running on AMD Sempron 3000+s with 512mb ram at all, or Athlon XP 2400+ with 512mb ram?

[mbedford]

We have rolled it out through WDS to around 600 Machines. We are hoping to have all 1500 done by the end of the month.

 

To be honest, its not been that difficult, but then again we are moving from Vista to 7 and not XP to 7.

 

We have created a base image

 

Win 7 Pro (Used Pro incase we need to use MAK for any reason)

Office 2007 SP2

Visual Studio 2008

Pretty comprehensive list of pre-requisities (C++, .NET's, Adobe Reader ect....)

 

Seems OK so far, the curriculum staff that are using it love it!

 

P.S - The problem with WSUS and driver updates isn't affecting us. We dont tend to upgrade drivers, if they work in the current version, why risk upgrading?

 

Bedz

[featured_spectre]

Rolling out with Win 7, Server 2008 R2, and Office 2007. Putting Virtual XP on the machines so that the kids can run some of there programs.

[jsnetman]

Just tarted the testing stage, have an image prepared and will probably deploy in the next holiday period. the head has given the go-ahead to purchase the required licenses but I still need more time to test all the antiquated apps we have here.

[tmcd35]

I must admit I'm a little surprised anyone would want to deploy this quickly. At least across an whole site. A single 'test' suite would make some sense. I see changing the OS for the entire site as a Summer job, so 2010 would be the earliest.

 

Actually I'm holding off till 2011 because I want to get Server 08 R2 and virtualisation in first. I can't believe Nephilim is rolling out all three (server, os and office) at the same time!

 

Maybe I'm just being over cautious. I am a little envious of those that this works for now.

[jsnetman]

Well you are probably right tmcd35 about the quickness of deployment, but we have been on XP for better part of a decade and feel we must move forward. The decision to go into 7 now is primarily because we did not deploy vista and we have all new equipment installed this summer. Sure we may lose some antiquated apps but management here accepted that and want to move on. In 2 years time I think you will be way out of step with what the pupils and staff will be using at home. I know thats not essentially a problem but to be in step with the community is a good thing.

[gshaw]

Different problem here as we actually train people how to use the OS, apps etc so until 7 is mainstream we can't go to it... also need training materials to be updated etc.

 

We also need new servers as I would want to run 7 with 2008 R2 server so looking a good year or two away for us yet I'd guess... might go for it on our Office PCs though as we've had it running on one of them since the early RCs

 

The funny thing is we've got no trouble on the desktop side... those machines would eat up 7, especially the new E8400 boxes as they've got native support for XP mode as well

[TheCrust]

As with mbedford and gatt, we were a Vista school before so I would say early adoption for us has been less about bravery and more about logical progression, especially as the timing fitted in very nicely with a massive desktop replenishment programme.

 

Moving to Win 7 has provided no great technical challenges for us in terms of deployment: we know the desktop hardware supports it and we have a fair idea of what to expect from our experiences with Vista and the 7 Beta and RC's we've been using across school so far.

 

From a user perspective, the look-and-feel is at least similar enough to Vista to prevent us giving even the least IT literate staff heart attacks at the start of next month!

[tmcd35]

I suppose for a Windows Vista school, 7 is a natural progression that could go quiet smoothly even this early. Unfortunately I have the time/money problem - not enough of either.

 

I agree that 2 years from now is perhaps too long a wait but time and money say other whys I may look at a bit of phased roll out next year though, to prep everyone for the "big switch over".

[jpenn]

I Wish we could move over to 7 or even Vista but the mere mention of either OS makes the boss and senior tech scowl in my general direction!! Just like so many others stuck in the past. if they had their way we would all be using 98 or worse a Dragon 32.

[MrHoff]

We intend to go with 7 from September.

 

However, I'm a bit stuck with the mandatory profile bit as the old "Copy To" button is greyed out.

 

It's the only thing that's standing in the way right now as we have the image, deployment and policies ready.

 

(Hi btw, first time posting in these parts!)

[Slipbye]

Welcome MrHoff, i'm a bit new around here myself hehe

 

The Copy to is a right pain but the way we got round it here was to manually copy the profile to our share.

 

Then rename the folder to whatever you want it and put .V2 on the end so studentman.V2 for the folder name.

 

Deleted Appdata\Local and Appdata\Locallow from the profile folder.

 

Launch Regedit on the fileserver where we stored the profile.

 

Select hkey_users and then load the hive from ntuser.dat in your profile folder.

 

change the permissions on the hive so you delete the old user and add everyone full control.

 

unload the hive from regedit.

 

then rename ntuser.dat to .man.

 

Make sure when you point to your profile in AD you don't add the \studentman.V2 as it dosen't need the .v2 in the name as AD uses the v2 to tell the difference between win7 profile/xp etc. just point it to studentman for example.

 

I'm pulling this from memory but if it dosen't work let me know and i'll double check it for you.

 

 

Ontopic.

 

After Iceskaiting uphill for a few day's all workstations/laptops are deployed with win7 here, servers have been virtualised and all dc's are now 2008r2. Just waiting for the start of term now and tidying up some cabeling etc.

[Trapper]

Slipbye, nice one. Works a treat.

 

Was annoyed to find that MS have removed this feature. Not every can sysprep all profile changes. The Copy to option was very flexible and worked well.

 

Only change I had to make was to change where BGInfo saves it's .bmp, as it is removed from %WinDir% as soon as the file is created. Moving the save location to a folder in C: root works fine however.

 

I'm currently just playing around with it at home. Running Server 2008 R2 and 7 Enterprise in VMs. Taking a look at Exch 2010, sadly I have far too little RAM to run them all at the same time!

Edited August 31, 2009 by Trapper

[Great_Scott]

I admire anyone who has the courage to take that "first step" and deploy a new MS OS so soon to their network, good luck! As for me, I have been testing it on a VM at home since first release, I do like it and a lot of other people from various sources are shouting good things about it too but something is giving me doubts that it is as good as it seems and I'm definitely thinking it is far too soon for deployment. Call me over cautious or whatever but I have to follow my gut instinct as I have done in the past.

 

I don't mind waiting another year or longer if needs be.........

[ranj]

Maybe this very useful video on lite deployment of windows 7 in the enterprise may help.

 

Word of warning though the video is over an hour long but goes into great detail about deploying windows 7. Worth watching if you are planning on using microsoft deployment toolkit 2010.

 

http://blip.tv/play/hIxygauBaQI

 

Courtesy of Nicky Curtis and co of IT idiots.

[Ben-BSH]

With windows 7 do you not have to put domain\username or username@domain to login? this would be a nightmare at our school, if i am correct in my assumption the CTRL ALT DEL screen is out, and the welcome screen with no drop down for domain is in..

[DrCheese]

With windows 7 do you not have to put domain\username or username@domain to login? this would be a nightmare at our school, if i am correct in my assumption the CTRL ALT DEL screen is out, and the welcome screen with no drop down for domain is in..

You can set the default domain in policy so just typing in the username works. You will have to type machinename\username if you want to log on locally tho, but from what I recall there's a popup that shows the machine name on the login screen

[TheCrust]

Yup - the only time we ever have to put DOMAIN\Username or username@domain in to log on to any of our workstations is when we log on as the domain administrator.

 

It seems if an account name exists locally (as it will with the Administrator account) then the machines will default to try and log you on locally. If the account doesn't exist locally - as user logons generally won't - then it will not require any domain prefix/suffix adding and just go straight to the network for authentication.