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If your organization has decided to move to Windows 7, you're not alone. IDC predicted in 2009 that more than 170 million units of Windows 7 will ship by the end of this year (2010). California-based web analysts NetApplications.com recently reported that Windows 7 early adoption rate was double that of Vista. They wrote: “Such a growth rate reinforces earlier predictions that Windows 7 will overtake Windows Vista as the second-most popular OS on the market by June 2010.”

We know you already love ZENworks, but here's one more reason it can be your best friend this year. It can help ease the pain, tedium, and risks of migrating to Windows 7, and make you a hero for your endusers (who have to live with the fallout if it's not done well). If a Windows 7 migration is on your plate, this one's for you.

When you are prepping for your move to Windows 7, you need to consider several important factors like:

• Will you be able to bring along your users' desktop settings and data when you move them to Windows 7?
• Will all of the apps people use actually run in a Windows 7 environment?
• Can you move users to a new desktop without disrupting their productivity?

Three ZENworks products are key to answering those questions. They can provide critical help that can translate into time and money savings throughout your Windows 7 migration period, relieve the burden on your whole IT team, and bring your users forward without crippling their productivity. Here are just a few of the ways these three ZENworks products can help.

ZENworks Asset Management comes into play during your discovery period, when you're looking for all of the software being used in your company, so you can tell what your users will need. This product analyzes all of the software on your hard drives and checks it against a database of applications (which is always being updated as more apps are certified). It generates Windows 7 readiness reports for you that can tell you which of your hardware is capable of running Windows 7, and which software is compatible. (As a bonus, it'll even tell you which hardware and software isn't being used at all, so you don't waste your time migrating them.)

Once you've identified your Windows 7 migration candidates, ZENworks Configuration Management has a raft of “personality migration” features that automate the process of preserving your users' settings and data to a Windows 7 environment. The last thing on earth you want is a whole company full of users who can't get their jobs done after the migration. They'll spend a lot of their own time dinking around in their offices, trying to get their desktops back the way they had them set up. Or they'll call the Help Desk. Both options are costly, and unnecessary if you use ZENworks Configuration Management.

So what about application continuity? How can you be sure those applications perform as intended in new environments? How do you make sure that your users have access to the right applications before, during, and after their Windows 7 migration? After all, Windows 7 is meaningless if your users don't have access to the applications they need to remain productive. This is where ZENworks Application Virtualization comes into play.

First, by virtualizing your applications with ZENworks, your applications run as executable files so testing them in a variety of environments is a snap—no installation and no fussing with configurations, just run and test.

Second, because your applications are virtualized there are no application conflicts and you no longer need to worry about regression testing.

Finally, with ZENworks Application Virtualization your users can have access to the applications they need without interruption, thanks to their extreme portability. Once the apps are virtualized, your users can run them from a USB thumb drive, or stream them over the Web. This means they can use borrowed hardware to instantly run their applications while their own machines are undergoing migration. Once their machine is fully migrated, they don't need to put in service calls to get their required applications installed—they can continue to run applications from a USB thumb drive, stream them over the Web, or grab applications from a common file store. Even better, IT administrators can use ZENworks Configuration Manager to push virtual applications out. With ZENworks Application Virtualization your users can continue to do their job while you do yours.

When the big day comes, ZENworks Configuration Management helps you make the move without the endusers knowing what happened to them. Using features like blackout schedules, wake-on-LAN, and device wakeup, you can migrate your users to Windows 7 overnight. They hit the ground running the next day, and they won't need the Help Desk to get them started.

This triple-combination of ZENworks products: ZENworks Asset Management, ZENworks Configuration Management, and ZENworks Application Virtualization, is affectionately referred to as the ZENworks Trifecta. Find out more about how ZENworks helps you with your Windows 7 migration here.

Share your Windows 7 Stories, and get Double Novell Rewards

Got any good stories to share about your Windows 7 migration? We'd love to hear from those of you who have used the ZENworks Trifecta to help you migrate to Windows 7. Send your stories to coolguys@novell.com We're offering double Novell Rewards points for any articles we publish on that subject. Make sure you put Windows7 in the subject line, and we'll know you want in on this double-points offer.

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.