Hi! I'm a SysAd for a medium-sized department in a higher-educational system. Our network consists of 3 sites with 100+ users, 3 small server farms - 1 AD-DC per site - running Win2K3/AD for authentication and shares, Linux for big dbs, web, and some custom app's, and mostly WinXP (some Debian/Ubuntu workstations). We skipped Vista for obvious reasons -- if you've never seen a higher-ed IT budget you might be shocked at how little we get for upgrades/replacements
Moving to Win7 is going to be quite a process for us since we can't just shutdown all of our lab work to do an en-masse upgrade, can't afford new equipment within the next two budget cycles, and don't have the staff to train employees, staff, and faculty on a whole new way of doing things. Mostly though, it looks like Win7 is designed mostly for consumers -- in fact, I'd say from the previews on the MS site, it's mostly for stay-at-homers who like to do computer-based scrapbooking, web browsing, watching TV and movies on netbooks, playing video games, and just general time-wasting. I really hope I'm wrong but it does NOT look like a business-ready OS like Win2K-Pro and WinXP were when they came out.
Can someone direct me to some resources about using Win7 in a locked-down, AD-GPO-based work environment? I really don't want our faculty coming by to complain that their grad-students are wasting time watching DVDs instead of doing research -- only to find that I can't lock out Media Experience or use the same policy-based features we have in WinXP.
Great forum! Thanks for providing it.
ATB,
Geoff in Gainesville