Windows 7 Early Adopters Forum for Schools. Top Reasons and top tips for deploying Windows 7.

The Windows 7 Early Adopters’ Forum has proved to be a great event today with some fantastic collaboration between schools and Local Authorities across 7 Counties. The mix of 20 people sharing their experiences of deploying Windows 7 in a variety or environments proved to be invaluable for all those who attended. As a wrap up to the event I asked the group to reflect on what we had discussed and come up with two lists to share with people. The first was 5 top reasons to move to Windows 7 and the second 5 top tips for deploying Windows 7. This is what they have come up with.

5 Reasons to move to Windows 7

1. Improved Performance and Speed.
2. Helps sustain Hardware (better than Vista and even XP).
3. Vastly improved security features.
4. Search and User Interface give a very intuitive experience.
5. It is not Vista!

5 Top Tips for deployment

1. Use MDT 2010 for deployment- this makes life easy.
2. Complete a software audit well in advance of deployment.
3. Group policies will be key to a successful deployment. Investing in getting it right.
4. Load test where possible with smaller scale test deployments.
5. Don’t use redirection of folders as this grinds log-in times down.