Windows 7 Application Compatibility – an IT Pro Guide
App Compat is only for developers, right? Not quite. If you are an admin you know what I am talking about.
Lots of application – many of them still on Windows XP – need to be migrated to support the rollout of a new OS.
Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit only) and Windows 7 (64-bit and 32-bit) have been released to manufacturing or RTM’ed very recently. General availability of the bits will be later in October of 2009. You (as in the admin in you) hopefully have already started investigating what it might take to deploy Windows 7 in your current environment.
I am sure you use TechNet and the STEP portal to find all the relevant documentation, presentations, whitepapers, guides, .gif)
videos, lists, cheat sheets, spread sheets and more to get your job done or at least to find out what it might take to successfully deploy the new OS, and to enable your users to take advantage of the new capabilities and features.
But where to start?
The IT Pro evangelism team here in Redmond came up with an idea. What if we put up a page on the web with high level guidance and help IT professionals worldwide to find the most relevant pieces of information?
With the help from folks across Microsoft the team built a page guiding IT Pros through the wealth of items available, all the way to a fully deployed Windows 7 environment.
The web page is hosted on TechNet as part of the Springboard series and covers the 5 most relevant steps in the deployment/migration process:
- Process (Intro video)
- Inventory (Video)
- Remediation via application fixes (video)
- Remediation via virtualization (video)
- Deployment (video)
With the help of introductory (and entertaining) videos it walks you through the decisions you'll make when migrating from a Windows XP environment to Windows 7. You will learn about the tools and resources available from Microsoft to help you each step along the way.