Windows 7 shipped to consumer and volume-licensing customers on 22 October. The release builds on the Vista architectural foundation with substantial polish; the cumulative deployment trajectory should be substantially less painful than Vista's was.
This is a longer post because the deployment significance is structurally important.
What is in Windows 7
The release is, structurally, Vista with substantial refinement. Three categories of change.
Reliability and performance work. Substantial fixes for Vista's specific friction points; better resource utilisation; faster boot and shutdown; improved responsiveness on hardware that ran Vista poorly. The cumulative effect on user-perceived experience is meaningful.
User-experience improvements. The new taskbar; refined window-management; improved file dialogs; better default behaviours across applications. Specific user-experience improvements are bounded individually but cumulatively meaningful.
Bounded architectural extensions. UAC remains but with more granular default behaviour; the cumulative kernel improvements continue; specific subsequent architectural refinement matches the trajectory from Vista.
The cumulative effect: Windows 7 is the Vista-pattern that Vista should have been at initial release. Specific architectural improvements remain; specific friction points are addressed.
Why this matters for deployment
Three observations.
The Vista deployment friction has been substantially addressed. Specific application-compatibility issues that surfaced under Vista have been resolved through subsequent vendor work; specific user-experience friction has been reduced through refinement. The cumulative deployment cost should be substantially lower than Vista's was.
The cumulative XP long-tail will accelerate migration. Specific organisations that deferred Vista deployment will move directly to Windows 7. The cumulative XP-to-7 migration over the next 18-24 months should be substantial.
The architectural foundation is now operationally established. Vista's architectural improvements (UAC, ASLR, integrity levels, protected mode) carry into Windows 7 with refinement rather than introduction. The cumulative defensive trajectory continues.
What operators should do
For organisations running Windows infrastructure:
Plan deployment for late 2010 or 2011. The wait-for-SP1 pattern remains operationally rational. Specific organisations may move earlier with appropriate testing; specific organisations may wait longer with appropriate cause.
Application-compatibility testing should be substantially less work than for Vista. Most applications that run under Vista will run under Windows 7 with bounded modification. The cumulative testing workload is meaningful but bounded.
Hardware refresh planning. Windows 7 runs better on lower-spec hardware than Vista did; specific hardware-refresh cycles can be more flexible than Vista's were.
User-experience training. The new taskbar and other UI changes require brief user orientation; specific cumulative communication ahead of deployment reduces support load.
What I am observing through Hedgehog clients
Specific patterns from advisory engagements through October.
Several clients have accelerated XP-to-7 migration plans. Specific organisations that had deferred Vista are now moving directly to 7. The cumulative trajectory across multiple clients is consistent.
Specific application-compatibility audits are smaller than Vista equivalents. The cumulative reduction in compatibility friction is real.
User-experience preparation is being underestimated. Specific organisations underestimating UI-change communication will see specific subsequent support-load impact.
The cumulative observation across clients informs specific subsequent advisory work.
What I am paying attention to
Three things over the next 12 months.
Specific Windows 7 vulnerabilities and Microsoft response cadence. 95% probability of meaningful issues. Every major release has issues; cumulative response trajectory will inform structural confidence.
Cumulative deployment percentage. Specific tracking metric. The Windows 7 deployment trajectory will inform structural assessments.
Specific subsequent XP exhaustion. 85% probability of substantial reduction in XP deployment by end-2010. The cumulative migration is now operational.
What I am doing
For Hedgehog clients: continued advisory on Windows 7 deployment planning. Specific cumulative engagement supports specific client decisions.
For my own infrastructure: Windows 7 on the test machine; cumulative observation continues.
For my own continued writing: continued tracking of Windows 7 deployment. The cumulative archive grows.
More in time.