Windows 7 Getting Rigorous Enterprise TestingWindows 7 Getting Rigorous Enterprise Testing

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Windows 7 won't be released until later this year, and most companies plan to wait awhile before deploying it, but that doesn't mean that early adopters and early testers aren't already hammering away at the new Microsoft operating system, testing it for its strengths and weaknesses.

BAA, which owns and manages airports in the United Kingdom and increasingly globally, is in the early phases of test deployment with 20 pilot users of Windows 7, and plans to begin a wider test with business users at the end of July. As of now, it plans to begin rolling out Windows 7 in its production environment relatively soon after its release as part of a hardware upgrade cycle.

BAA upgraded late to Windows XP -- in 2004 and 2005 -- and thus hasn't moved to Vista. Currently, it runs a locked-down version of Windows XP that relies on application virtualization via Citrix to deliver more than 200 of its business applications. However, employees have complained that they don't have enough flexibility and control in that environment, and, according to Tim Matthew, head of BAA's IT architecture, "the perception is that we are constraining them from operating efficiently."

As BAA is still early in its testing of Windows 7, the company still has some evaluating to do before it can really weigh in on possible business benefits of the forthcoming OS. However, Matthew is particularly interested in Direct Access, which will allow employees to connect to corporate networks without the need for a VPN, but which also requires Windows Server 2008 R2. He's also interested in using Microsoft Application Virtualization, which is available for an added fee to Software Assurance licensees as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Program.

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Intel, as one of Microsoft's biggest partners, has been working closely with Microsoft on Windows 7 since its earliest stages. More than 300 Intel employees in disparate groups across the company have Windows 7 as their primary operating system, and that number is likely to increase as Windows 7 inches toward release. Intel is testing Windows 7 on three hardware configurations, including both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

The chip manufacturer's internal IT group uses blogs and social networking to get feedback from Windows 7 users and to allow employees to share tips and tricks on the OS. Engineers monitor those feeds to see where employees need help, to provide feedback to Microsoft, and to evaluate the OS. The company has a report due out this year evaluating Windows 7 that will help it make a decision on whether, when, and how to upgrade.

Though Intel works closely with Microsoft, it's still predominantly running Windows XP largely because of initial application compatibility problems, a lack of performance improvements, and the simple fact that, during testing, Windows Vista didn't increase employee productivity enough to justify an upgrade.

Intel is looking to improve employee productivity at the same time it keeps costs down, so for Windows that means user interface improvements are critical. Windows 7 has a number of UI improvements, from a new taskbar to better search and new window features like the ability to snap a window to the side of the screen. Microsoft also is touting performance improvements in features like suspending and resuming the OS and switching between windows.

"The people who have seen Windows 7 generally like the look and feel," said Daryl Ganas, Intel's general manager of customer capability for IT. "The comment is that it's very snappy and that a lot of things are generally faster."

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From an IT perspective, Intel is still in the midst of testing and evaluating Windows 7 but so far sees improvements in driver and application compatibility, and likes the fact that Microsoft has introduced new tools like the Application Compatibility Toolkit and desktop virtualization to support "particularly gnarly" legacy applications that would require significant recoding to work with Windows 7.

T-Systems, as a managed desktop services provider to large enterprises, is another early tester of Windows 7 and has been since before the public beta. As its customers begin to ask questions about Windows 7, T-Systems has 70 employees using Windows 7 and is on its way toward 200 before the release of the OS later this year.

So far, T-Systems sees Windows 7 as stable and much improved in terms of compatibility compared with this point in Vista's testing. From the standpoint of Torsten Reinhardt, T-Systems' technology adoption program lead, the biggest business benefit in Windows 7 is one that also requires Windows Server 2008 R2, a VPN-less corporate access feature called Direct Access that T-Systems believes can save its customers money on encryption and VPN concentrators.

Reinhardt also sees benefit from Windows 7's improved search functionality but says it will likely work best with the next version of Office and Microsoft's enterprise search installed. The company has very few gripes about Windows 7 this early in the process, though Oliver Rother, solution manager for managed desktop services, would like to see the ability to encrypt a full drive from a smart card to meet some customers' high security demands.

Romanian power company Transelectrica always tests Windows versions before they're released and currently has more than 45 users on Windows 7. The company is running a mixed Windows Vista-Windows XP environment, with Windows XP on older computers and those running some critical line-of-business applications that don't work on Vista. It sees significant improvement in Windows 7's speed and ease of deployment.

information has published an in-depth report on Windows 7. Download the report here (registration required).