Windows 7 Ultimate: A Well-Buyed Investment For A Small Business

Submitted By kdole1509
Words: 2029
Pages: 9

Windows 7 Ultimate sounds like a well-advised investment for a small business. Most of the Windows 7 items that Mr. Green should be aware of he would already be familiar with since he has been utilizing the Windows 7 Home Premium. I would recommend considering the option of investing into Windows 7 Enterprise licensing right away depending upon how many connected machines he has as each CD key is a license for one workstation and depending on how many work stations Mr. Green has the Enterprise Edition is Volume licensed. It is also important that he understands the system and hardware limitations of Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise which include a Maximum RAM support on 32-bit edition of 4GB. We would want to know some additional information of Mr. Green’s anticipated hardware in the future and if he is currently running 32-bit or 64-bit edition. I would recommend that we upgrade to the 64-bit edition, however, to make an easy upgrade using Windows Anytime and meet existing hardware specifications I would recommend to keep the Windows edition at the same 32-bit or 64-bit edition based on its current version. This would help to ensure that the system conversion will not require potentially new hardware devices. By staying with the same version during the Upgrade the printers, network drivers/adapters, etc. will continue to function as they did previously. Also, Windows 7 Enterprise offers offline file access which is something Mr. Green wanted for his connected workstations. (Zecker, 14-15). With the consideration of Mr. Green’s business expanding, I would want him to be aware of the AD DS domain support as this will allow an easy networking connection to a Windows Server 2008 if he expands to a larger connected group of workstations. He should also be aware of the limitations for peer network connections being a maximum of 10 as this could be a concern as his workgroup expands. (Windows Server). A great feature of Windows 7 Ultimate is the ability to create a network-based backup which was not available with Home Premium. This will be great for future upgrades if Mr. Green decides to move from Ultimate edition to the Enterprise Edition (Zecker, 14). I would also want Mr. Green to be aware of the new features that he will have available on the upgraded system and how they will impact his business. Some of these include BitLocker, AppLocker, BranchCache and Direct Access. (Zacker, 14-16) Since Mr. Green wants to get his stand-alone systems networked the BranchCache would be a great tool as Windows 7 Ultimate will not only support up to 10 peer network connections but this tool helps to buffer data and make file sharing easier with reduced bandwidth utilization to help maintain an efficient connection and reduce lag on the workstations (Zacker, 10). This will also help if he expands to a Windows Server 2008 with the increased workgroups as his business grows. I would also ensure that he understands the hardware maximum and minimum requirements for future workstations that he might purchase.
In order to allow Mr. Green to utilize a Windows 7 Ultimate software without committing to it we would either have to create a backup of all data and user settings and then use Windows Anytime to upgrade the system to Windows 7 Ultimate or create a dual boot environment with Windows 7 Home Premium and adding Windows 7 Ultimate to the other partition. With the system a dual boot with the Windows Easy Transfer tool, Mr. Green would have access to both systems. However, this could be a concern as the data from one system will not update automatically to the other partition. It is possible to create a home group on the Windows 7 Ultimate partition and then shared files that the Windows 7 Home Edition system can join to ensure that the new files on the Ultimate partition can be viewed on both systems. If he determines that the new version is going to work I would recommend a wipe-and-load refresh of the workstation to ensure that we clear out