Windows 7 - Primaries

[korifugi]

The main site I'm employed by made the move to Windows 7 pretty much off the bat (3rd in the country! Woohoo!), but as the feeders - whom I support are still playing with XP I've decided that it may be a good time to move to 7 for security, stability and other schtuff beginning with s...

 

So - Have any other 'geekers that support primaries made the move? Just curious to find out really?

 

Or am I going to be the test subject as one of my sites has practically jumped on the idea!

Edited January 29, 2010 by korifugi
cursed fingers not working fast enough!

[chrbb]

Can't afford it! Going to wait until server 2008 installed to make sure I get fully functional GPOs. Do the primary school you support have the finances and suitable hardware for upgrades then?

[korifugi]

Yup - they're going the schools agreement route for licensing and they've got got enough in the pot to fund it.

 

As for hardware (aside from the odd :censored:elonex:censored: everything is easily capable of running 7. May need to buy the odd stick of RAM for odd laptops but aside from that they're ready.

[BrianG]

The main site I'm employed by made the move to Windows 7 pretty much off the bat (3rd in the country! Woohoo!), but as the feeders - whom I support are still playing with XP I've decided that it may be a good time to move to 7 for security, stability and other schtuff beginning with s...

 

So - Have any other 'geekers that support primaries made the move? Just curious to find out really?

 

Or am I going to be the test subject as one of my sites has practically jumped on the idea!

 

 

We haven't yet but we will in the next phase of computer upgrades. I support 6 primaries and myself and the technician for our neighbouring cluster have decided now is the time to make the move.

 

We've already got a couple of staff laptops lurking around with 7 on. They've been no problem what so ever. In my opinion they are a great improvement on Vista, which we had no plans to upgrade to.

[JOrdan01070]

I am looking into this now it just depends on how good windows 7 plays with server 2003 as i don't have any budget to move to server 2008 just yet.

[LeMarchand]

One of mine is a Junior, and all the teachers got W7 laptops. Bit annoyed that it turns out that they're being encouraged to keep those at home, and soldier on with their old ones in school. Seems a waste of money to me.

 

One of my other schools (a primary) is looking at getting a new bunch of laptops for staff - I'm quite keen on getting those on W7, but worried about the technofear from the teachers.

 

Both on Server 2003, as LEA still not supporting 2008(!).

[chrbb]

Yup - they're going the schools agreement route for licensing and they've got got enough in the pot to fund it.

 

As for hardware (aside from the odd :censored:elonex:censored: everything is easily capable of running 7. May need to buy the odd stick of RAM for odd laptops but aside from that they're ready.

 

Will you let me know how it goes for future reference? As we're in the same LA do you mind me asking if many of your feeders have got VPLs up and running? It's sort of on my list of things to do eventually.

[korifugi]

...the technofear from the teachers.

 

Yeah - this is one of the three 'big' issues, along with there is an amount of software that will just not work and the cost.

 

Got the cost covered, now just need to do some testing to find out what software'll be nuked.

 

As for the staff - the ones using Vista at home I can just leave to their own devices (mostly!). The main problem'll be the ones who are still scared of the "Magic thinking box!"

[korifugi]

Will you let me know how it goes for future reference?

 

I was just thinking that if I'm going to be one of the first to move I'll probably blog it right here on edugeek - that way everyone else can see any issues/responses/bonuses.

[BrianG]

I was just thinking that if I'm going to be one of the first to move I'll probably blog it right here on edugeek - that way everyone else can see any issues/responses/bonuses.

 

That's a great idea. I'd definately follow it with interest !

[contink]

I've got four primaries that I support and every single one has staff in it that will balk at the idea of something new... This has included Office 2007 where not one school has it installed although the one with the funds and licenses already in place is starting to get an upswell of staff who are keen to try it.

 

My biggest problems however are threefold past the technofear aspect

 

1. Money... Simply put, there is absolutely none available and if there were it would, for the most part be getting used for Office 2007 and other educational software rather than an OS upgrade

 

2. Training... As much for me as for the other staff. The need, for myself, to be able to deal with the myriad of new approaches and changes requires time I don't have so that's a non-starter. Teachers, even excluding the technofear crowd are also stretched as the pressure to deliver lessons with more and more interactive IT elements is just immense so they don't need something else that could break or leave them flustered in the middle of an inspection.

 

3. Software Compatibility... Almost all primaries have and rely on software that is anywhere from 5 to 10 years out of date or behind OS releases such as XP, much less Vista.

 

 

 

Just as a note... I'm aware that many of the posts on this thread are from Secondary techs looking to drag their feeder/satellite primaries kicking and screaming into the new millenium + 10 but I suspect you are approaching it from the viewpoint of Secondary software requirements and not taking into account the very different nature of Primaries and the fact that their systems lag behind quite considerably for the very reasons noted above.

 

It's only my opinion but I'd strongly recommend getting the input of other primary school techs as to what their experience and tips are on this because I suspect you aren't fully informed.

[SimpleSi]

7 for security, stability and other schtuff beginning with s...

 

Why on earth would you want to waste a primary schools money on a completely unnecessary "upgrade"?

 

Security - do they do stuff for GCHQ?

 

Stability - is there a piece of quality educational 16 bit software that crashes less on Win7? (If so - I'll be first in the queue if its called Textease or Black Cat Super Tools )

 

s...

 

Now, I can imagine that a big network with sparkly servers running W2k8 SP20 "might" benefit from XPp-Win7 - but even then - I'd need a lot of proof - still not seen an eureka post saying thank god for win7 - I can now do xxx which I couldn't do in XP.

 

But then again, I've an automatic fillter for any IT invented after 1964

 

Or am I going to be the test subject as one of my sites has practically jumped on the idea!

 

mm- lets think - do they have a geek for a head/ICT co-ord?

 

[/RANT]

 

regards

 

Simon

PS Seriously - forget it - please

[SimpleSi]

@contink

 

Martin

You put it so much better

 

Si

[contink]

@contink

 

Martin

You put it so much better

 

Good grief... There's a first... Must be because I finally finished my tax return after 2 weeks ruddy hellish work...

 

Personally though I thought your post was rather a nice balance on mine...

 

Perhaps the falling around on your back, kicking your legs in the air was a bit OTT though

[SYNACK]

Already pushed it to a large testing chunk of one of the schools and have the go ahead for another when a certain company finally creates some stable printer drivers. We had already upgraded to Vista though so training is not really an issue and it means that all of our hardware had been upgraded with more RAM. For primary usage it runs fine on a P4 or Celleron 1.8GHz with 1GB or more of RAM. Better with HT or dual core though.

 

The one minor hurdle that we had in one place was that they were using an old form of logon script that used con2port to setup the printers and another chunk of mental software to do the drive mapping (legacy from the last lot). Once I converted that to native VBS or even if I hade used native BAT it ran just fine.

 

As has been meantioned before for policies you will want to start fresh and if you still have XP computers floating around you will want to use WMI filters to make the right GP apply to the user depending on what OS they log in on. Search my previous posts for instructions as it has been covered lots.

 

When it comes to training I found that it actually helped alot swapping OSs. Because it was new everyone had the excuse to get training without thinking that it damaged their image and despite the apparent techie view of the new GUI the teachers found it really good. For about a year I had teachers telling me about the great new features of Office that they have found which have actually existed since Office 95 but had been deeper in the old UI.

 

I am looking into this now it just depends on how good windows 7 plays with server 2003 as i don't have any budget to move to server 2008 just yet.

 

@JOrdan01070 and chrbb - Yes it works fine, had it that way at one site during testing, just use a 7 workstation with RSAT to manage it and you have full GP support. The one thing that I have heard can cause issues is the new preferences feature which I did not use anyway.

[LeMarchand]

3. Software Compatibility... Almost all primaries have and rely on software that is anywhere from 5 to 10 years out of date or behind OS releases such as XP, much less Vista.

 

That is a problem too, though the school that went ahead for the teachers' laptops only had one bit of software on the list that I couldn't get working (some POS DK thing) and I suspect that had I had more time, I may have sorted it. My other schools (less money) may well have some very old bits of software that won't work, though.

Edited January 30, 2010 by LeMarchand
Typo

[chrbb]

I was just about to post my 'primary tech' views when I read SYSMAN_MK's he's said everything I was thinking!

 

Although, it's equally important in my mind to make sure we don't lag behind the senior schools too much for the sake of the pupils.

 

Money is an issue in primaries and in mine we're just about able to replace hardware to maintain a status quo.

 

On a similar note has anyone upgraded recently from office 2003 to 2007 and knows the cost per licence?

[SteveMC]

Just about to replace a primary school's complete network with a Server 2008 R2/Windows 7 setup. I agree that if you've got a healthy XP/2003 system in place, there's not necessarily a rush to upgrade, but the school in question has an ICT suite they simply can't use, due to the 7-year-old PCs being next to useless, and their Windows 2000 server (which is of the same vintage) being on its last legs.

 

My view is this: if a school is due to replace kit, then there's no real reason not to go for Windows 7 (compatibility issues with old software aside).

 

Stephen

[chrbb]

Our LA supply Office 2007 Pro for about £35.00 IIRC

 

And there's my problem total upgrade cost for all computers in school £2000, I expect I'll end up getting 2007 over 2 years then waiting to install it, no point having half the computers with 2007 and the rest with 2003.

[LeMarchand]

And there's my problem total upgrade cost for all computers in school £2000, I expect I'll end up getting 2007 over 2 years then waiting to install it, no point having half the computers with 2007 and the rest with 2003.

 

Don't know the situation at your school, but the one school I have without an MS agreement (amazingly!) has been buying 2007 licenses and downgrading for the last 2 or 3 years, as the supplier didn't sell 2003 licenses. If you're lucky, you may be in the same situation and have more licenses than you think. (Though you'd have to check whether you're allowed to upgrade back to 2007).

[chrbb]

No we have 2003 licences, at least for the pupil machines, the staff laptops are a different kettle of fish - I'll look into that! Good thinking:)

 

Also just looked at microsoft schools agreement, realised with our recent purchases we now have reached the min quantity required, unable to find a price though, is it expensive?

Edited January 30, 2010 by chrbb

[SYNACK]

Compatibility is very often able to be sorted by the Application Compatibility Toolkit, you can set up a policy for the bit of software in question configureing all sorts of compatibility fixes not avalible via the basic run as XP mode and these settings can be pushed to the whole network. The primary issues with compatibility are usually antivirus programs and pc control software, as long as you have rights to the latest versions of these then most other issues can be solved with the above toolkit and a bit of fiddeling.

 

[SimpleSi]

My view is this: if a school is due to replace kit, then there's no real reason not to go for Windows 7 (compatibility issues with old software aside).

 

of course not

 

And it would be nice to know which old software doesn't work.

 

I'd suspsect that all Foundation/KS1 DK/Sherston/Oxford titles could be trouble for starters (but then again its tricky to get some of them working on XP )

 

As an experiment, it would be nice for an expert (e.g not me to try just getting one (say year 2) class onto Win7 - install it on teachers laptop and smartboard connected computer and the 2 class PCs (or a couple of the schools laptop trolley machines) and see what happens.

 

I know the Abacus Maths Framework doesn't work on Vista so that'd be a good one to see if works under Win7s vaulted XP mode

 

regards

 

Simon

[SimpleSi]

PS Ignoring W2k8+Win7 clients arrangement (cause I imagine there's all sort of goodies in that arrangement for you domain control freaks ) is there anything in Win7 itself you'd consider as being really good.

 

Ignoring esoteric things like "security" and "stability"

 

regards

 

Simon

 

I mean - whats really wrong with WfWg3.11?

[everton4europe]

One of the primaries i cove is going to windows 7. I am going to Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7 Enterprise at easter. The staff know and have had access to a couple of test machines since September. Had a couple of worried looks, but they will have to get used to it and have had plenty of time to look at the software during ppa time etc.