Windows 7 training: get help from a surprising source

Six months after its launch, Windows 7 has passed its first test. The first wave of upgraders love it. Now comes the hard part, especially for enterprises: weaning entire organizations off of Windows XP and onto Windows 7.

Changing operating systems is a traumatic experience for some people. Early adopters tend to muddle through, complaining occasionally but letting their enthusiasm for technology and love of shiny new things overpower whatever annoyances might crop up. But those who are dragged reluctantly to a new OS aren't so tolerant. I still get passionate, sometimes angry e-mail messages every week from people reacting to a post I wrote more than a year ago: If you love Windows XP, you'll hate Windows 7.

Where does all that emotion come from? Simple. Human beings hate change. More specifically, we hate unlearning stuff, no matter how much better the new way is.  If you're in charge of that enterprise rollout, you'd better be thinking hard about how you're going to keep those upgraders from rebelling at the prospect of disruptive change.

A new post at Microsoft's Windows Springboard Series blog, entitled "Making it easier to learn Windows 7," covers much of this ground. You might be tempted to skim it quickly and move on after reading the first few paragraphs. If you do, you'll miss one absolutely solid-gold resource that's linked there.

In all, the Microsoft post includes recommendations for a half-dozen categories of training resources. Most of them are predictable (although I'm gratified to see the recommendation for Windows 7 Inside Out). There's a single free online learning course, and a selection of "Work Smart Guides" originally written for internal use by Microsoft's own IT department; the latter are fairly Office-centric, with only a single Windows 7 topic on the list.

But forget about that stuff. The absolute winner on the list is the Enterprise Learning Framework, which offers access to a comprehensive collection of excellent training resources. Don't be fooled by the deceptively dull name: You don't need to be part of an enterprise to use this tool. In fact, even a sole proprietor or a Windows enthusiast could benefit from it.

The ELF is a simple three-part wizard. Step 1: Pick which Microsoft products you want to include on your list. Windows 7 is selected by default, along with the core products in Office 2007. Step 2: Choose your audience and timeframe. Are you trying to reach information workers who are already using Windows 7 or prepping support staff a month in advance of deployment? Step 3: Refine your topics, to include only highly recommended pieces, for instance.

When you're done, you have a list of neatly categorized links to training videos, articles, and online training courses, which you can save as a document (in HTML format) or as an e-mail message in HTML or text formats.

In my opinion, the biggest benefit of this tool is that it brings together resources that are scattered all over Microsoft's website. I went through the wizard several times, creating different combinations of resources and saving them for future reference.

If you're planning a Windows 7 deployment, this resource is well worth checking out.