Four hardware-related experiences for deploying Windows 7

Microsoft's Windows 7 has been available for nearly three years, and Windows 8 is expected to be released in the second half of this year. Now review and summarize the lessons we have learned in the process of deploying Windows 7 in a corporate environment.

Deploying Windows 7 involves several steps, so we focus on what is related to Windows 7 hardware requirements. What experience is related to hardware resources is our biggest gain?

The following are four lessons gained during the deployment of Windows 7:

1. You don't always need to thoroughly update the desktop from start to finish. This is a surprise for those who control the IT budget, and it turns out to be true. For example, Windows 7 can also run fine on a Windows Vista hardware platform. Microsoft did not focus on promoting this. If your PC is running Vista, it will take up less resources when you switch to Windows 7, and you will actually take up less physical memory and hard disk space after booting. This extends the life cycle of existing IT investments. This is also good news for administrators who are tired of updating hardware every three years. The Windows 7 deployment in an enterprise environment teaches that the upgrade of our operating system does not mean an upgrade of the hardware.

2. The hard disk is still the bottleneck. Processors and memory have increased dramatically over the past few years, but many systems still run on hard drives made up of outdated mechanical components. When client virtualization becomes a solution to application compatibility issues, virtualization puts more pressure on the disk subsystem.

Fortunately, hard drive manufacturers have solved this problem by introducing SSDs. They are a new type of electronic hard drive with the same external performance as a traditional hard drive, but without the mechanical parts removed, it doesn't drag the performance of the desktop or laptop and other mobile devices.

Although the SSD has low capacity and high cost, it cannot be compared with the traditional hard disk, but the performance is definitely superior. Users should keep work-related and sensitive information on the corporate network, rather than putting everything on the local computer. In this lesson we learned: use Windows 7 and SSD together.

3. Virtual XP temporarily requires hardware virtualization technology support. This is very important, especially now that Microsoft plans to introduce the traditional server virtualization platform Hyper-V into the Windows 8 client software.

In the months since Windows 7 was released, virtual Windows XP Mode requires these same extensions. Microsoft later released an upgrade package that introduced the old Windows Virtual PC product code to complete software emulation of virtualized resources to extend XP Mode to older desktops and older laptops.

Don't expect this to happen this time, after all, Hyper-V needs the latest 64-bit processor and chip support. Hyper-V technology is much more mature than Virtual PC, but if you need XP Mode or any other client virtualization technology, you should consider PC upgrades when using Windows 8. So, what did you learn about deploying Windows 7? Supporting hardware virtualization is an inevitable disaster for future upgrades.

4. Multi-monitor can greatly boost productivity. Windows 7 support for multiple monitors is much better than previous versions, adding widescreen resolution, improved picture quality and user interface, and easier configuration of each monitor's position and resolution. Few people deny the fact that switching from one display to two large screen displays per person will significantly increase productivity.

At the same time, we learned that with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 clients began to support the multi-display RDP protocol. So your virtual desktop architecture can also support multiple monitors. Windows 7 introduces multiple screens as default conditions, rather than selecting conditions and achieving seamless integration.

As Windows 8 approaches, these experiences gained in deploying Windows 7 can be used as a reference for future OS installations.