By Michael K. Campbell
With rumors now swirling that Vista SP1 will be released sometime around February 15th (no idea if those rumors are true though), it’s likely that many organizations will now get more serious about adoption.
In Five Windows Vista Adoption “Gotchas” and How to Get Beyond Them, Microsoft addresses some of the biggest concerns that enterprises have had when transitioning to Windows Vista. The best thing about this article is that it doesn’t sugar coat the content. Yes, Microsoft wants people to adopt Vista – but we all know that. The purpose of this article is therefore to help with that adoption process by outlining some of the key problem points that early adopters encountered with their transition to Vista.
Gotcha #1: Hardware Compatibility
This section starts with a frank acknowledgement that Vista requires decent hardware, and then provides a link and some information about downloading, installing, and using the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.
Though I’ve already installed Vista on my own hardware in the past, I found the Upgrade Advisor easy to use, and pretty thorough in terms of the feedback it provided about my software and hardware.
In addition to providing a bit of information and background on how to use the Upgrade Advisor, the remedy for this gotcha also describes some rollout strategies and prioritization efforts that organizations can use to transition into Vista adoption.
Gotcha #2: Business Applications
Again, with a frankness that I really enjoyed (i.e., instead of typical marketing), this section acknowledged that application functionality is one of the biggest impediments that many organizations will have in transitioning to Vista. Accordingly, it outlines how to use the Application Compatibility Toolkit, which offers application analysis, prioritization of potential problems or concerns, along with a database of known work-arounds. This section also makes mention of the Application Compatibility Factory and outlines ideas around leveraging virtualization in order to address difficult problems with application compatibility.
Gotcha #3: In House Applications
This section outlines the importance of educating in-house developers and making them aware of the architectural and security changes in Vista.
TIP: Gotcha #3 explains how the Application Compatibility Toolkit can be used by developers to help test setup packages, websites and applications for Vista compatibility.
Gotcha #4: User Account Control
This section starts by admitting that Microsoft has taken a lot of flack over UAC, going so far as even to mention that Apple made fun of it in one of their commercials. With that in mind, this section then describes the rationale behind UAC and how it benefits organizations and end-users. It also lays out ways to educate end-users about how to successfully use UAC and provides information about configuring applications for successful deployment when UAC is involved.
Gotcha #5: End-User Preparation
The final gotcha in this article discusses the very real problem that many organizations will face in terms of how end-users will end up coping with a new environment. Not too surprisingly, this article points to the need to proactively educate users before any transition – in order to ensure the least amount of end-user disruptions. But this section of the article also talks about using the Enterprise Learning Framework to help enterprises prioritize the most relevant topics and coordinate curriculum that helps end-users during the transition.
If you’re serious about deploying Vista within your organization and either don’t know where to start, or have identified some actual hurdles, Five Windows Vista Adoption “Gotchas” and How to Get Beyond Them is a frank and honest look at the best way to address some of the more common "gotchas" – and hopefully we’ll see additional, no-nonsense, articles like this in the future.