Get started on XP migration to Windows 7 by 2012
I remember talking to an IT manager about his XP migration plans to Vista, and he said that he was going to hold on to XP come hell or high water. Mainstream support for XP had ended and extended support for the OS will end in April 2014, but it didn’t matter to him. He was determined to make it work.
These days, an XP migration to Windows 7 feels inevitable. Vista just didn’t cut it, but Windows 7 is promising to take away the things that aggravated you about Vista, and has features that make your life easier. With Windows 7, you get improved management, security and reliability features: AppLocker, BitLocker, BranchCache and an improved user interface, just to name a few features.
You also get tools that Microsoft has developed to address some of the application compatibility problems, tools like Shims that target specific compatibility problems with applications when moving from XP to Windows 7.
Gartner estimates that it will take 12 to 18 months to plan your migration: gathering information about applications and hardware, testing and remediation and piloting, while some software vendors will stop supporting Windows XP in 2012.
Between the potential lack of support for XP on the part of some software and hardware vendors by 2012 and the end of extended XP support in 2014, Gartner analyst Stephen Kleynhans said time is running out. “It’s like we are test crash dummies heading for a wall,” he said during a recent webcast on migrating to Windows 7.
But I’d like to hear from you about your XP migration plans. Does the 2014 end to extended support make a difference to your plans, and how long do you think your XP migration will take?