Windows 7 Upgrade from XP

Upgrading to Windows 7 from XP is happening now. With XP going out of support in a few short years, it is imperative that the upgrade to Windows 7 from XP happens quickly. However, unlike with Vista, the upgrade from XP is fraught with issues, and since 70% of organizations have decided to miss out Vista entirely, the upgrade to Windows 7 from XP is the path the overwhelming number of organizations will be taking. According to the Microsoft TechNet site, there is simply no direct path from Windows XP to Windows 7. A loose collection of tools exist to help, but all require the IT administrator to be at the machine to perform the upgrade. Furthermore the upgrade process itself is very fiddly. Files and setting from Windows XP need to be unloaded using easy transfer, then Windows 7 is installed and the files and settings from XP restored. The upgrade to Windows 7 from XP can take over an hour for each machine  – with an IT administrator present throughout. With a fully burdened cost for IT Admin’s running to $350 per hour, even a modest size company is going to spend a huge amount of money on labor costs just to complete the upgrade. The good news is that alternatives are beginning to emerge. Here at Scalable we’ve updated our PC Lifecycle Management tools to make the process zero touch. A Windows 7 upgrade from XP can now be completed with no visit to the workstation.  Our use of User State Migration tool (USMT) V4, in remote mode handles the migration of all the XP settings and files to Windows 7. In actual fact the upgrade occurs without any movement of data from the machine. Our implementation of USMT enables Windows 7 to simply use the XP files and settings during the upgrade process.  In short Scalable is able to streamline the Windows 7 upgrade from XP to such an extend that most workstation can be upgraded with 30 minutes with no human intervention, and no onsite visit.