Open Pilot: Windows 7 Enterprise RTM SOE Unleashed

After waiting a little longer than we expected for the RTM media, we are now officially 2 days in to Open Pilot. In the past 2 days, we have deployed our Windows 7 Enterprise RTM SOE to 31 Open Pilot users spread across 7 geographical locations and 4 time zones. We have deployed to 7 different hardware platforms including desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and netbooks – with a combination of 32 and 64 bit hardware.  We have deployed to a sample of every business unit with a combination of experienced and not so experienced users. All this with just 2 images; one 32 bit image and one 64 bit.

The results so far have been fantastic. Other than a handful of teething problems, the deployment process was essentially pain free for the users. With a bit of planning, we were able to automate the capture and restoration of user state, the reinstallation of key Tier 2 applications, and the setting of appropriate regional and time zone information. We achieved this using SCCM 2007. We created dynamically populated collections of machines with variables assigned; that were in turn used in a Task Sequence to deploy the SOE image along with all of the conditional Tier 2 components and customisations.

We have one day left of Open Pilot deployment, with another 12 machines targeted for tomorrow. Next week we’ll spend a couple of days regrouping before unleashing Windows 7 on the remainder of the organisation.