1. What Opportunities Will Vista Bring You?

Guy Thomas is a computer consultant and writer with attitude and a great sense of humor. Here Guy, who lives in the UK, gives you some tips on getting in on the ground floor of the Windows Vista revolution. Check out his Ezine here.

I will cover two tightly connected threads in this article: What can Vista do for your career? And, what can Vista do for your company? As Vista is new, ’old timers’ no longer have the edge. Anyone who learns Vista suddenly becomes the new expert. Two areas where computer specialists will always be in demand are migration and security.

The problem with migration projects is that you always have to start from scratch. Your last migration was so long ago that you have probably forgotten how you did it, and even if by some miracle you have the procedure documented, the technology has moved on (even if the principles remain the same).

When a new system like Vista arrives, it has new features to make migration even easier, but nobody tells you that it takes about a week on a test network to perfect and document these improved techniques. Busy people just employ a migration expert. Alternatively, that migration expert could be you.

Guy’s strategic advice is to avoid upgrades. Instead always install the new operating system from scratch and absorb the pain of transferring user specific files and settings. The secret is to beg steal or borrow a test machine or two and practice in the privacy of your computer room. Resist showing off by starting with a live machine, only to lose the managing director’s files or worse, the CEO’s secretary’s files.

It now looks like Vista won’t see the light of day until around Easter 2007. So far and yet so near. Don’t let delays slow your move toward the status of Vista expert.

Once you have built the new Vista machine, it’s time to migrate users’ settings from XP to Vista. For this task, investigate the improved User State Migration Tool (USMT) and the new PC Migration Assistant.

For a big roll-out of Vista, look out for new technologies like WDS (Windows Deployment Service). WDS is like a son of RIS. The key new feature in WDS is that it supports Windows Imaging format (WIM). It is also possible to include applications such as office in the Vista image. The concept behind WDS is that you start with a new "virgin" machine with no operating system. When you boot this machine, its PXE network card finds the DHCP server and from there it contacts the WDS (RIS) server and downloads Vista. The killer advantages over Ghost are that you can control the machines with Group Policy from day one.

Career wise, any half-decent techie can become a migration consultant and make a nice living. The good news is that there will always be migrations, by the time the laggards migrate to Vista it will be 2010 and time for the pioneers to migrate to the next system. Begin by migrating a few small businesses and graduate to larger, more lucrative roll-outs.

Three tips to finish this migration section.

Migration projects always over-run on both time and budget by 25%. Therefore, ask for extra time and money at the outset. Lay down a marker and ask for a good selection of test machines. Keep a roll-back option for as long as possible into the project.

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