In a recent blog posting by Kristen Caretta for SearchCIO-Midmarket.com, she points out that many mid-market companies are holding off on migrating to Windows 7, mostly due to the clean-install process and costs to upgrade.

After seeing this article, one of my associates asked me how many Shavlik users have migrated or are planning to migrate to Windows 7?  If the majority of you are holding off on the migration, this would not surprise me for many reasons.

1. Isn't Windows 7 built on the same technology as Vista? For those who tried Vista and really struggled, thinking about going to Windows 7 probably had you a bit gun-shy.  Who could blame you?  My personal experience on Windows Vista x64 (to take advantage of the RAM, I run a lot of VMs locally)... My domain profile blew up 4 times causing authentication issues with Exchange, SQL, etc resulting in time spent with IT to remove me from the domain and re-add me.  I downgraded to Windows XP x64 which I cannot say was much better, but I was able to use the additional RAM and did not have to spend quality time with IT once a month.

2. Time and money. IT is already strapped for time and do not have budget to bring on temps, add head count, or pay out overtime to do the upgrade.  It also takes time and money to provide user training on this new operating system.

3. Complexity. I have been through a number of OS migrations.  On my personal machines I started back in the Windows 3.1.1 days.  95, 98, 98 SE, 2000 workstaion, Mellenium (I skipped this one, but my roomate in college had a great time installing then reverting back to 98SE), XP, Vista, and now Windows 7.  I have also been part of Windows Server and Novell migrations at a former company.  No OS migration is smooth.  Upgrade installs almost always result in short term gain, long term loss.  Fresh installs take longer, but are cleaner in general.  For XP to Windows 7 it is a Fresh install, but the install of Windows 7 lets you keep the old OS on the hard drive so you can access files.  This takes up drive space, but you know you have all the data just in case.  Upgrade or Fresh install you will encounter product or hardware incompatibilities.  There could be a long road of support issues to get everything back to normal even with adequate testing in advance.

So for those of you in the Shavlik Community, what are you doing today regarding Windows 7?

[polldaddy poll=2550631]

-Chris Goettl