Anyone using Windows 8 in a business environment

yuloni

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ObeyTheSuit

Hey mate,

Recently completed a contract to deploy SCCM 2012 R2 and W8.1 image for about a 1500 user site.

First a lil history of why Win 8 looks the way it does. Firstly we have Steve Balmer who stepped in as MS CEO and Chairman of Microsoft after Bill gates retired. Steve, looking at how Apple had been transforming themselves and the market decided to transition Microsoft into a device and services company, or a copy them. During his tenure a lot of 'catch up' effort went into the Windows 8 U as old Stevie had been sterring MS away form such lucrative business. He was ousted and now Satya Nadella stepped in and I quote "we make operating systems" so expect a return to the norm. Hopefully that briefly answers your question as to why Microsoft went down that path.

I've found the older generation have great difficulty adjusting to the Windows 8 UI. A lot of companies avoid it because of the cost of retraining staff on how to use it. I note here in Win 10 it's reverted to back to the classic start menu so the transition won't be as hard.

As for the OS, I find it quite stable and full of useful features but for the average user they will mostly not be used. The load speed from boot to logon screen is greatly improved since W7.

Domain and AD integration is fine, it depends really on your scenario and how you have applied your group policy and logon scripts. Works just as well as Win 7.

Live accounts are no longer a requirement in Win 8.1, I disable them by default unless requested otherwise. User's can still sign into live accounts for specific apps e.g OneDrive within the OS if needs be, if you allow it.

As for the user interaction, well I've seen people freak out about migrating from XP to 7 and 7 to 8.1. People don't like change that much as you can imagine and this interface is relatively a bigger one than seen before. After a few month users get used it and calm down but you really need your service desk staff to help them out, especially auol Betty in admin...

For headaches... all I can think about is the end user training at this point as it seems to stick out in my mind a bit. Other than that I didn't have many issues apart from a few legacy apps not playing ball (I'm talking 90's apps here) which i virtualized with app-v so that problem went away.

Generally I think it's a good OS when the user gets used to it and for those more tech savvy and in certain situations. For example I had a user that required an XP machine for legacy software. The simple solution there was to user Hyperv (free on W8.1) to run a virtual on their machine etc.
Support wise you can still manage it the same way as Win 7. I've worked in an environment where the business had a W7 SOE but allowed users who wanted Win 8.1 to have it. I can understand most companies want a single OS to support for cost and efficiency reasons.

My advice though is to skip it in favor of W10. It has the same look and feel as W7 but as you probably know with most new operating systems you will have to wait a bit to ensure all the bugs are out or a service pack. Most of the businesses I deal with won't migrate for at least a year after release.

I assume you are not using SCCM so if you decide you want to go with it build an image using MDT 2013.

-Update it (patch etc)
-Install Windows Management Framework 4 (5 is out soonish)
-Install .net
-Set customizations, e.g custom login screen etc
-if needs be install apps.
-Finalize build.
-Set your group policies (use Microsoft security Compliance Manager -free).

Group Policy is where I recommend you look at using your rigid regime. You can use things like app locker to stop users executing files or polices to hide stuff. It will save you a heap of time and support. I try to leave an image as clean as possible and manage it at a higher level, but that's my preference.

yuloni

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_Kaiser_

As ObeyTheSuit says, I don't think there's much point in deploying Win 8.1 into a business at this stage given Windows 10 is already in public testing (Technical Preview) and will probably be RTM by the summer.
I'm using it here as I type and even in this early state it's pretty solid.. there's a few annoyances and bugs of course but to be fair to MS, they seem to be listening to the feedback they're getting this time and updates/new builds are coming through regularly.

Win 10 brings back the familiar (but updated) Start menu so you avoid the problems people have with its disappearance, OR having to tell them it's back again after they've finally gotten used to not having it.
10 will also sort out the desktop/tablet functions a bit better.. you don't even see the Start screen unless you have a tablet/touch-capable machine, and there's some interesting new ideas coming through like the Notification pane in the systray.

If you can, I'd sit tight till it goes RTM and then deploy it instead.

yuloni

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ObeyTheSuit

Haha, that's a small site for me. I did 5 years working on a 500-600,000 user network about 1/5th the population of Ireland. Some of the toys I've gotten to play with are pretty far out.

I think you have the right idea already but just some notes:

-If you don't know PowerShell start learning. MS is going more and more PS as it advances. For example Exchange 2013, if you don't know PowerShell you can forget about being an Exchange admin. Where this applies to the desktop, I would look at scripting your app installs to make it easier for you. So you would create a standard image (SOE) that is literally as close to out of the box as it can be and use PowerShell to perform the app installs / import reg hacks and further customization for each site. That is of course if you really need to set these on the desktop OS itself. The concept being, one image, multiple configurations. Food for thought.

-Win 8.x was Balmer's brain child. It was built on an improved W7 foundation, hence it's stability. W10 is Satya's. Vista was the first stab at a new 'revolutionized' OS which of course they rushed and only got right the second time round with the release of W7. In my opinion (and many others) they focused too much on the Aero themes and not the code behind it. It relates to people saying Win 98 is what Win 95 should have been and hopefully Microsoft have learned from that mistake.

-Like you i'm wary of 3rd party free apps with no vendor support. Obviously the biggest mistake MS made was making that interface the only one you could choose. If business and home users were allowed to change it back I'm sure sales and uptake would have been a lot higher. I still here techs say it's a cap OS, but it's not. The original release left a bad taste in their mouths and they wont forget it quickly.

I think the consensus here is wait it out till W10 is released and known as stable.

Capt'n Midnight

ObeyTheSuit wrote: »

-Win 8.x was Balmer's brain child. It was built on an improved W7 foundation, hence it's stability.

When Balmer announced he going to retire in a years time Microsoft shares jumped 7% "Most Valued Employeee" comes to mind :rolleyes:

Changing the UI was a mistake. An unforgivable mistake to anyone who watched how Desktop Remix / Unity was rejected by many long term Ubuntu users

I think for business there is definitely a case for having a single setting for "classic" desktop , ie one that's currently in use the corresponding server instead of having to tweak multiple UI settings to get the UI back to a point where you don't have to retrain employees.