Migration Expert Zone

Last month, Microsoft Setup & Deployment team member Christa St. Pierre posted an article on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer’s Network) “Building Windows 8” Blog titled “Improving the Setup Experience.”  For many of those who have been deploying Windows versions for many years, this seems somewhat akin to “Achieving Universal World Peace.”

Windows Setup has long inspired angst amongst the technical community, because it can be laborious and frustrating.  In her post, St. Pierre points out the challenges in building a Setup process for an operating system. 

For example, when first installed, the operating system is not aware of any future hardware that it will be expected to run on.  It’s hard to anticipate the drivers that will be required for that new hardware, or the software applications that will be run on it, either. 

For many of these reasons, it is difficult for those who deploy Windows to accept the idea of it becoming easier and faster, as St. Pierre claims in her post.

Shifting Migration Drivers

The post explains that most users choose to migrate to a new version of an operating system only when obtaining new hardware, in part because new operating systems tend to require higher CPU, memory, and other capacities than their predecessors. Microsoft committed to turning this around with the release of Windows 7, making it possible for XP and Vista users to migrate on their existing hardware. 

As we’ll discuss below, Microsoft wants the Windows 8 setup process to be as painless as possible. It’s important to point out that both Gartner and IDC have commented recently that they don’t see enterprises waiting for Windows 8, citing greater anticipated difficulty in leapfrogging Windows 7 and the customary evaluation period for Windows 8 stretching beyond the 2014 XP support cutoff date. 

Simplifying an Already-Simple Process

Clearly, Microsoft wants to separate hardware decisions from operating system choices, so St. Pierre asserts that Windows 8 will provide both a “streamlined setup” that will make it easy for most users to simply run the upgrade as an application directly from their existing desktop, and an “advanced setup” for power users and administrators that will provide the more traditional full migration experience, complete with disk partitioning, formatting, and unattended installation. 

Microsoft also says it will offer the upgrade bits directly via Web download, instead of via purchased media.

St. Pierre claims Windows 8 Setup will also make it easier for users to select what they want to migrate, including personal files, Windows settings, applications, or nothing at all. Windows 7 users will be able to transfer applications to their new Windows 8 environments smoothly, while those migrating from Windows XP, which still represents more than half of the current Windows installed base by most estimates, will not.

She goes on to say that the Windows 8 Setup process cuts Windows 7’s four wizards and 60 screens down to one end-to-end experience in as few as 11 clicks, an improvement of 82% fewer clicks. A clean install with all previous files and data wiped completely should take around 32 minutes for Windows 7 and only 21 minutes for Windows 8. 

Don’t Wait

Windows XP has already enjoyed an 11-year run as the preferred Windows desktop operating system. When support is discontinued in 2014, XP will have had a 13-year effective lifespan.  Windows 7, introduced in 2009, will only be on the market for five years at that time. This will only add to the complexity of the upgrade decision process for users and network managers.