Air Force and VA lead way on transition to Windows 7

The Air Force and the Veterans Affairs Department are leading the way in migration to Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system for personal computers, with the Air Force planning to complete the move by December 2011, while VA last week solicited bids to support what will be a five-year transition project.

Microsoft will end support for the Windows XP operating system in April 2014, which means all users must develop a migration strategy before then. Ed Leary, an optimized desk top specialist with the Microsoft federal group, said he spends at least 30 hours a week talking with federal agencies about Windows migration, but to date, "I would say that the Air Force and the VA lead the way."

The Air Force, which operates 600,000 PCs, announced Oct. 29 that it plans to transition PCs running the universally panned Vista operating system Microsoft introduced in 2007 and the 2001 XP to Windows 7 by December 2011.

Col. Mark Ware, director of operations for the 24th Air Force in San Antonio, which operates the service's networks, said the upgrade "enhances the security of the Air Force information networks, reduces the manpower requirements for desktop administration and lowers overall software licensing costs."

Lt. Gen. William Lord, the Air Force's chief information officer, told reporters at a Pentagon press briefing today that he considered the switch to Windows 7 a "daunting task,", especially from the end-user perspective. And it is a big change for users who had their computers set up just the way they want them, he said.

The switch will require not only a change in the operating system, but also changes in 19,000 internal Air Force applications to ensure they are compatible with Windows 7, Lord said.

VA, which has an inventory of roughly 327,000 desktop and laptop computers, last Thursday solicited bids for a contractor that can provide the engineering expertise, hardware and software to enable deployment of Microsoft operating Windows 7 throughout the department. This will include testing 71 models of laptops in VA's inventory to make sure they are compatible with Windows 7.

The Navy plans to start migrating PCs connected to Navy Marine Corps Intranet to Windows 7 in January 2011, a source who declined to be identified told NextGov. The Army last March opted to use Vista and has no current Windows 7 migration plan. Leary said the Army is testing Windows 7.

Installation of a new operating system is a complex task requiring extensive back-end work to ensure compatibility between commercial applications, drivers for peripheral hardware such as printers, as well as agency-developed applications and the new operating system.

VA plans to set up a lab that will run Windows 7 on 2,500 machines simultaneously and also expects its Windows 7 contractor to test 1,500 machines running a variety of applications packages.

Leary said Microsoft has developed a number of online tools to facilitate the migration to a new operating system, and he promised the transition from XP to Windows 7 would be easier than the move from XP to Vista. The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit will aid enterprisewide deployment of Windows 7, he said. Other tools include a downloadable spreadsheet that details commercial applications that work with Windows 7 and the Windows 7 online compatibility center, which provides access to drivers and software updates, Leary said.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology also maintains the United States Government Configuration Baseline, which will help ensure that agencies and departments install Windows 7 in compliance with federal standards, according to Leary.

Migrating to Windows 7 is easier than previous Microsoft operating systems because end users do not have to copy their personal files -- which can take up as much as 15 gigabytes of memory -- and then reinstall them after the operating system is installed.

Those files are held in as partition and then installed after Windows 7 is set up, Leary said. He estimated the time to install the new operating system and user files at about an hour.