Introduction

Windows 7 stands in stark contrast to its precursor, Windows Vista. Despite Microsoft’s hope and hype for Vista, most organizations perceived it as a Windows client OS release that they could easily skip. After all, Microsoft had improved the security of Windows XP, XP ran on the hardware most organizations had deployed, and XP ran the applications organizations wanted to use.

This time the Windows team has taken a different approach, carefully promising only what they could deliver in the time limit they imposed on the update—three years from the release of Vista. By carefully managing changes, ensuring application and driver compatibility with Vista, and working to improve the resource utilization and performance of the OS, Microsoft has a version of Windows that many organizations will be willing to deploy, particularly now that Windows XP is in Extended support.

This report outlines the features and benefits of Windows 7 most likely to interest business and looks at some of the changes to acquiring and licensing the Windows client OS that are timed to occur with the launch of Windows 7 in Oct. 2009.