My first "deployment"

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:07 pm

I'm no pro, but this has been awful. I built 12 new computers, 4 GB RAM, fast dual-cores, HDDs, etc. Windows 7 Pro and Office 2007 Pro on all.

People have been bitching left and right, "MY 900 DESKTOP SHORTCUTS ARE GONE!!", "Mail merge doesn't work like it did in Office 2003!" "I can't get used to Outlook, I want Outlook Express back!"

But it's mostly snide bitching, the kind where they're trying to convince you to change it back for only them, or where YOU are to blame for them being unable to grasp that they don't need to close any of their programs because they have so much RAM that Outlook and Excel can be left open all day.

It's been two years of prodding for the office to upgrade in toto, and when it happens, bitching.

To you true pros: is it always like this?

CiscoKid · Post by **CiscoKid** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:09 pm

Just imagine if they switched desktop versions of acounting software...

No user is ever happy with what they've got got.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:44 pm

Burke wrote: "I can't get used to Outlook, I want Outlook Express back!"

To you true pros: is it always like this?

Heehee...yeah, I hear that one a lot...when I get people to dump Outlook Express and go to Outlook.....or dump AOHell and go to Outlook.

But after a while...especially after showing the office manager or one or two power users how to really utilize all the collaboration tools within Outlook and Exchange Server...after a period of time goes by, the majority of the end users get a lightbulb atop their head, and start using the avail tools.

And after a while, I learn which users I can leave with a clean slate..and can predict which users will be the moaners, and sort of give them more of a kid glove treatment, trying to migrate over as much as possible. The little things like the "NK2" file...that's the file Outlook uses when you start typing in a few letters of an e-mail address, and it fills the rest in because you've previously sent them an e-mail.

Migrating from old PC to new PC, one thing I often do for some users is copy the entire old drive to a folder on the new PCs hard drive..like C:\Download\OldHD. There are some users that I just know will say.."Oh..I forgot I had <this> on my old PC..can you still get that? Other users, I'll just grab their old profiles \Desktop, \Favorites, and \Documents folder..as well as a few hidden files like the PST/NK2, etc. For migrating Outlook Express mail/settings to a new PC, on the old PC before you copy data, open up OE, note where the mailstore is kept...copy that over, and within OE, export the mail settings into the .IAF, and export the address book as the .WAB, I plop those exports into the My Docs\Transfer folder before copying over. On the new PC...setup OE, import those..and if transferring to Outlook..easy import right there.

Those steps are the least amount of time spent by you, to give the end user the most stuff back. Which is the key to your sanity.

mnosteele52 · Post by **mnosteele52** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:49 pm

Sometimes yes, a lot of people don't like change or are simply afraid of change. If people would be open to learn a few new things it would make their computing life so much easier. Migrating clients from XP to 7, to me 7 is hands down the best OS MS has ever released and far more advanced than XP but it's different and people are afraid to take the time to learn the changes, frustrating isn't it, I feel your pain.

nightowl · Post by **nightowl** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:00 pm

Burke wrote:I'm no pro, but this has been awful. I built 12 new computers, 4 GB RAM, fast dual-cores, HDDs, etc. Windows 7 Pro and Office 2007 Pro on all.

People have been bitching left and right, "MY 900 DESKTOP SHORTCUTS ARE GONE!!", "Mail merge doesn't work like it did in Office 2003!" "I can't get used to Outlook, I want Outlook Express back!"

But it's mostly snide bitching, the kind where they're trying to convince you to change it back for only them, or where YOU are to blame for them being unable to grasp that they don't need to close any of their programs because they have so much RAM that Outlook and Excel can be left open all day.

It's been two years of prodding for the office to upgrade in toto, and when it happens, bitching.

To you true pros: is it always like this?

hate to tell you but users are never happy. Just tell them that there old software is no longer supported which will lead to viruses that will delete there work

Shinobi · Post by **Shinobi** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 7:05 pm

Welcome to the joys of IT !

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:09 pm

Take admin rights away from people so they can't do certain things and the fire roars!

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 9:44 pm

Before I deploy new version of Office and similar apps I install them & try 'em out myself. I heard a lot of moaning about Office 2007 user interface and some liked it too. I absolutey hate it, but everything you need is there, you just have to learn it. But IMHO it's not user friendly and is less intuitive because 90% of all other software still use the standard Explorer style menu bar.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:42 pm

Burke wrote: To you true pros: is it always like this?

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 2:38 pm

TonyT wrote:Before I deploy new version of Office and similar apps I install them & try 'em out myself. I heard a lot of moaning about Office 2007 user interface and some liked it too. I absolutey hate it, but everything you need is there, you just have to learn it. But IMHO it's not user friendly and is less intuitive because 90% of all other software still use the standard Explorer style menu bar.

The main reason we upgraded is because the top company we broker for sends all their files in the 2007 file formats, and we had to convert them, make necessary edits, save, and sometimes they'd have to re-convert them, blah blah. We decided it was better to just move to 2007, take the lumps, and go forward.

MadDoctor · Post by **MadDoctor** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:20 am

The there is the government and the 'paralysis of analysis' about moving to a new OS. Fortunately, Windows 98 is pretty good... so current management can keep deciding if the move to ME will be good or bad.

God forbid they talk to someone in IT about it.

Jamie_R · Post by **Jamie_R** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 7:51 am

Burke wrote:To you true pros: is it always like this?

yep.

well I guess it depends on the people in the company.

the last place I worked, you wouldn't believe how many times (per day) I heard "I don't know nothin' 'bout no computer" ... and they were PROUD of that

Jamie_R · Post by **Jamie_R** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 7:55 am

Shinobi wrote:Welcome to the joys of IT !

and this.

mnosteele52 · Post by **mnosteele52** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 8:26 am

Burke wrote:The main reason we upgraded is because the top company we broker for sends all their files in the 2007 file formats, and we had to convert them, make necessary edits, save, and sometimes they'd have to re-convert them, blah blah. We decided it was better to just move to 2007, take the lumps, and go forward.

Just FYI Burke, you could have simply installed the File Format Converters update and it would have automatically opened Office 2007 documents in Office 2003, no need to convert anything.

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 11:27 am

mnosteele52 wrote:Just FYI Burke, you could have simply installed the File Format Converters update and it would have automatically opened Office 2007 documents in Office 2003, no need to convert anything.

We had them. But oftentimes massive edits had to be done, and then the company would have issues with whatever we did, and then they'd send the files back, we'd re-convert, blah blah.

Also our top company has a proprietary database they've hooked directly into Office 2007, incompatible with 2003 and earlier, and so on.

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Wed Mar 31, 2010 7:28 pm

MadDoctor wrote:The there is the government and the 'paralysis of analysis' about moving to a new OS. Fortunately, Windows 98 is pretty good... so current management can keep deciding if the move to ME will be good or bad.

God forbid they talk to someone in IT about it.

Still on 98!?

CableDude · Post by **CableDude** » Fri Apr 02, 2010 7:09 pm

How long did it take you to distribute the 12 units?