XP Ending in April 2014
While more than 90 percent of you have said you’re committed to Windows 7 and Office 2010, many of you have many of your PCs still running Windows XP and Office 2003. Moving to Windows 7 and Office 2010 today enables you to embrace the way we work today versus the way we worked 10 years ago.
Furthermore, Windows XP and Office 2003 will no longer be supported after April, 2014 which leaves little time for you to upgrade your PC fleet when accounting for the time it takes to prepare for the migration and complete the deployment.
Gartner.com underscores this in their September 19, 2011 FirstTake titled “Don’t Change Your Windows 7 Plans Because of Windows 8” which states: “With support for Windows XP ending in April 2014, we believe it would be dangerous for organizations now running XP to attempt to skip Windows 7 and move directly to Windows 8.” Gartner goes on to recommend: “Organizations running Windows XP and working on Windows 7 migrations: Continue as planned; do not switch to Windows 8.”
The tools and resources to get you there
There are variety of resources and tools that to make your migration smooth:
- The Springboard Series on TechNet includes a lot of great in-depth advice to help you with your deployments.
- Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) is also very helpful to accelerate your deployments.
- The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP).
You might also want to consider Windows Intune for PC management and security via the cloud, plus upgrade rights to Windows 7 Enterprise. This is a great solution for companies that have groups of lightly managed or non-managed PCs. So, now is the time to accelerate your Windows 7 Enterprise deployments and consider an Office 2010 deployment at the same time. Moving to Windows 7 and Office 2010 will make your employees more productive and secure today and will get you ready for the future.
windowsteamblog.com