Should you be switching to Windows 7?

Windows 7

What are you currently using on your business computers? Are you still using XP? Well according to the research company Gartner, businesses should start investigating Windows 7 by the end of 2010.

Gartner are advising companies to begin plans to implement Windows 7 by the end of this year, so that they can switch from XP by the end of 2012.

The advice from Gartner comes despite the fact that Microsoft's official support for XP doesn't end until April 2014. The research company is giving the advise in order to avoid any compatibility issues, as new applications increasingly fail to work with XP and independent software vendors end their support for apps on the OS, silicon.com reports.

Windows 7 will be a business standard

The end of XP and the move to Windows 7 will be a significant one as many companies never made the switch to Vista. Research by Forrester in October 2009 found that eight out of 10 new PCs run Windows XP, nearly eight years after the operating system was first released.

The research, which surveyed North American and European SMEs and enterprises, found that the majority of businesses using Windows XP plan to migrate straight to Windows 7 and without migrating to Vista first.

Organisations will need to work out whether to migrate all employees onto Windows 7 in one go, or more gradually over a longer period, as old PCs are replaced with new hardware running the OS, according to Gartner.

Those who choose to migrate all the computers at once should set a target end date, work out when the latest date they can begin deployment is and then add extra time for pilots and testing - bearing in mind most organisations will need 12 to 18 months to plan, test and pilot Windows 7 before migration, Gartner said.

Jodie Humphries

Jodie Humphries graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA Hons in Creative Writing in 2008. She has worked for GDS Publishing for the digital group since July 2009. She has previous experience with writing for the web, running her own website since April 2007.

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