Planning for Your Windows 7 Upgrade

Windows 7 will be available on October 22nd, and many companies want to immediately take advantage of the many enhancements and new features it will offer, such as more intuitive taskbars, improved device management, and a more powerful search facility for files.  With an IT asset management system in place, you can more effectively plan and execute your Windows 7 upgrade effort, to ensure the smoothest and most efficient transition possible.

With these simple steps, performing your Windows 7 upgrade will be fast and problem-free:

• Conduct a full hardware inventory, to determine which hardware components will be impacted by the upgrade, and to identify their current configuration and see what operating system they are currently running.
• Check the Windows 7 system requirements at the Microsoft website.
• Identify any gaps between what currently exists, and what you need, then correct them before the Windows 7 upgrade takes place.

How can hardware and software asset management tools help simplify and accelerate this process?  First, they provide faster – and more accurate – visibility into what you currently have.  Manually logging your inventory, then comparing it to your requirements, can take days, or even weeks, and may result in errors.

Second, they enable you to more proactively and precisely analyze your environment and determine what is missing.  In fact, without an IT asset management system in place, companies often discover that their hardware is inadequate too late in the game.  This can not only delay your Windows 7 upgrade project, it can drive up your costs.

But, most importantly, taking IT inventory with an IT asset management solution can help enable more effective management of your new Windows 7 operating system long after the upgrade has taken place.  Patches, bug fixes, and other updates can be tracked across the entire environment, to ensure that all hardware is kept current at all times.

Visit our Web site to learn more about SaaS IT asset management, and how it can help facilitate smarter planning and implementation of your Windows 7 upgrade.