Win7 #auTechED

The journey of a couple of guys getting the free HP netbooks at TechED Australia

Hi Guys, meet Jeff Alexander.  Jeff is bloke who has the [enviable] task of getting Windows 7 out onto all our Netbooks!!  Jeff was kind enough to take a few moments after his Windows 7 Deployment livemeeting yesterday to stop and answer a couple of questions for me.

For those who don’t know Jeff, he is Microsoft Australia’s, IT Pro Evangelist.  He’s been working with Windows, since before it was cool  — Anyone out there remember "Interface Manager" =)

(For more about Jeff, have a squizz at Long’s post “Jeff’s 20th Anniversary” or Jeff’s Blog)

Anyway, following in the spirit of Windows 7, I asked Jeff 7x questions on “How do you do Win7 to 2200+ netbook?”  His Answers are below the fold.

1. Hey Jeff, you’ve been with Microsoft for over 25 years now;  have you *ever* seen anything like this attempted before?
2. Can you share with us, any feedback you’ve received [or envious comments]  from Microsoft Globally about such a deployment?
3. It’s also your role, to get (everything that is awesome about) Windows 7, on to over 2,200 laptops.  Where on earth do you start with a job like that?
4. Nick mentioned, you’ve been putting the HP Netbooks through the testing labs.  Can you comment how they’ve been performing?
5. As you’ve been planning and exploring, what are some of the coolest features you’ve come across?
6. Where to from here?  What can we expect over the next little while?   … and can we check back on the progress with you?
7. But What if we want to know more now?

Jeff Says:

Q1:  Hey Jeff, you’ve been with Microsoft for nearly 25 years now;  have you *ever* seen anything like this attempted before?

A:  Hey Dugie!!!  ..it’s actually been almost 22 years now.  You’re making me seem older than I actually am!  No I haven’t seen anything like this attempted especially at such a large event such as TechEd.  Now the panic begins!

UPDATE:   Ooops, Sorry about that one Jeff!  ..Dugie =)

Q2:  Can you share with us, any feedback you’ve received [or envious comments]  from Microsoft Globally about such a deployment?

Feedback from customers has been:  Wow! Awesome! Can’t believe it!  The same feedback is coming from the US and other MS subsidiaries.  And of course for some reason they all want to come to our TechEd this year now!  I wonder why that is?  But the bets comment I’ve had is this:

• Found out last Friday work was not sending me to Tech Ed this year. (bad)
• Had already decided I would pay my own way if need be, so I started sign up process yesterday. (good)
• Netbook offer popped up while I was signing up. (AWESOME!)

Q3:  It’s also your role, to get (everything that is awesome about) Windows 7, on to over 2,200 laptops.  Where on earth do you start with a job like that?

A:  Thanks for reminding me of the enormity of this task!  But seriously we have had everyone and anyone suggesting what “needs” to be on the Netbooks.  When I think about this I keep reminding myself of the goal.  “To give TechEd Australia attendees a great Windows 7 experience on a small form factor PC”.  We have to think about the platform we are dealing with.  It’s a small form factor PC and a lower powered device than a normal laptop.  So we have to make sure we don’t add too much “stuff” as I like to call it that will detract from that experience.  We will give attendees options to install applications post-install if they want.

Q4:  Nick mentioned, you’ve been putting the HP Netbooks through the testing labs.  Can you comment how they’ve been performing?

A:  They are great!  Run Windows 7 really fast.  As of this writing there are 2 device drivers that have not been recognized by Windows 7.  We have identified these with HP and are now incorporating these into our build process.

Q5:  As you’ve been planning and exploring, what are some of the coolest features you’ve come across?

A:  MDT 2010 is going to make this process so much easier and really all the new deployment tools are enabling us to attempt a project like this in the first place.

Q6:  Where to from here?  What can we expect over the next little while?   … and can we check back on the progress with you?

A:  Now it’s time to get down to the nuts and bolts of building images and testing them out with the machine.  Plus we are going through a list of applications to see what makes sense to include in the build process.

Q7:  But What if we want to know more now??

A: That’s easy, follow the Twitter hash Tag #auteched and, stay tuned because we’ve got some seriously cool stuff in the pipeline from all of us here at the TechED team.

Awwww Shucks, Thanks Jeff!  If you want more info, Jeff is on twitter as well: www.twitter.com/jeffa36