Microsoft is continuing its Windows 7 marketing push with a recommendation that all customers examine desktop virtualisation before moving users to the new operating system.
Desktop virtualisation is still probably more often talked about than actually deployed, but analysts and vendors believe the expected mass migration to Windows 7 may be coupled with many new virtualisation deployments.
Virtualisation of desktops, applications, and user settings may potentially speed up the process of moving users from an old desktop to a new Windows 7 machine, and solve application compatibility problems.
Microsoft, though, gives nothing but high marks to desktop virtualisation in a post on the Windows for your Business blog.
"As they move to Windows 7, we are seeing customers widely adopt the virtualisation technologies," writes Microsoft. "This helps IT simplify deployment, migration and management of their desktop environments enabling faster service delivery, as well as centralise and secure data, and makes applications and user state available regardless of locale."
Microsoft goes on to say that "Leveraging these benefits can get customers to Windows 7 more quickly and easily, so we recommend all our Windows 7 customers look into how desktop virtualisation can help their migration."
Microsoft, of course, is pushing its own virtualisation products to help with Windows 7 upgrades,recently updating the Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualisation to improve compatibility with legacy applications and create more options for running Web apps that require the outdated Internet Explorer 6.
Windows 7 includes an XP Mode and a Virtual PC technology to run older operating systems. However, Microsoft has many strong competitors in desktop virtualisation and is unlikely to dominate this market in the same way that it dominates the operating system market.
Citrix and VMware are the biggest contenders, with each vendor offering both desktop and application virtualisation software. VMware, for example, upgraded its ThinApp application virtualisation software this year to migrate applications from older versions of Windows to Windows 7, noting that many customers face complications in moving legacy apps to a new operating system.