Windows 7 is closing in on its third month since general availability and uptake is nothing short of spectacular according to Microsoft, which has deemed the latest release of the Windows client the fastest selling version of the operating system in history. Still, Microsoft is little shy of providing customers with additional resources designed to streamline adoption as much as possible. An illustrative example in this regard is the “Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z” whitepaper authored by Jeremy Chapman, a senior product manager at Microsoft.

According to the official description of the download, the guide is set up to document “the high-level steps for IT professionals to perform an enterprise-scale desktop deployment project—starting with Windows XP and moving to Windows 7.” The “Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z” documentation can be grabbed from the Microsoft Download Center at no charge.

Make no mistake about it, the resource in question is not aimed at end users. Instead, Chapman notes that the whitepaper will come in handy to IT professionals that need to upgrade multiple computers or users from Windows XP or Windows Vista to Windows 7. The guide deals with migrating user data, settings, and applications between platforms, a process that needs to be performed automatically. Chapman stresses that IT pros will need at least some experience with platform installation, deployment, or system imaging.

“The good news is that with advances in system imaging, you no longer need to spend hours saving user data off an old computer, cloning the hard drive of a reference computer, and then taking the time to restore the data you saved in the first step,” he added. The guide covers a few topics, including Migrating User Files and Settings from Windows XP to Windows 7, Application Management and Preparing for a Windows 7 Deployment, Choosing an Image Strategy and Building Windows 7 System Images and Automating the Migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 End-to-End.

Via the “Deploying Windows 7 from A to Z” whitepaper, IT pros will be able to perform with ease major steps in OS deployment, including: “Collecting existing user data and settings (if they exist); installing the operating system; installing drivers and applications; activating the operating system; joining a domain (if necessary); restoring user data and settings; and providing the flexibility to customize which applications we install by user role, and applying language preference, locale, time zone, and so on based on user needs,” Chapman said.