Maybe you’re one of those people who wait until the last minute—whether it’s packing for a trip, filing your taxes, or getting your company’s hundreds of Windows 10 machines upgraded to Windows 11.
While many orgs have been budgeting and planning for Microsoft’s Oct. 14 end of support for Windows 10, some have not.
A Q2 global assessment of more than 1 million enterprise Windows devices from desktop-visibility platform ControlUp found that 50% of machines were on Windows 11, and 13% had hardware in need of replacement.
The bottom line for companies still considering their move to Windows 11, according to Anthony Oren, CEO of managed security services provider Nero Consulting: There will be no more security updates.
“Hackers will attack eventually. They don’t need the zero days,” he said, referring to never-before-seen exploits. “They’re just going to rely on these organizations failing their deadlines, failing to upgrade a patch, and they’re just going to strike. And that’s really our biggest concern,” Oren said.
We spoke with Oren and other IT professionals about a move from Windows 10 to 11, and four important steps in between.
1. Hardware compatibility. Microsoft has released minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11 support, including approved CPUs, 4 GB of RAM, and Trusted Platform Module 2.0, a security chip providing cryptographic keys to support device authentication.
Ross Whitmore, owner of the Michigan-based Northern Technology Services, looks for minimum hardware requirements when assisting clients with the 11 upgrade: 500 GB drive, 16 GB of RAM, and no less than an Intel i5 or i7 processor. Whitmore uses asset management tools like CloudRadial to track machines and their updates throughout the process, as well as remote-monitoring software like NinjaOne to understand warranties and other health-specific attributes of individual devices.
Amit Patel, SVP at Consulting Solutions, recommends that companies perform an inventory to determine which devices will be upgraded or refreshed.
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“They probably need to replace certain hardware, at least even components within their devices, but it’s usually underestimated,” Patel said. “Not just from a cost perspective, but also the time perspective of acquiring those new components or new devices.”
2. Application readiness. Patel advises orgs to make a list of mission-critical applications—and get ready to test them on a Windows 11 device. He also recommends reaching out to vendors as early as possible to see if their customers have experienced specific challenges related to the OS transition.
Whitmore adds that downtime during upgrades is often linked to “wonky” line-of-business applications. To avoid the wonk, he advises customers to check devices, and maybe even reinstall a device’s operating system, to ensure firmware and OS updates have been made.
Also, check in with your users. Whitmore told us; even if specs look correct, “it might still take them 30 seconds or two minutes from the moment they try to open a file to the moment the file actually fully opens,” he said.
3. Robust backups. Make sure a user’s profile and documents are backed up, Patel said, before an upgrade to avoid any unexpected upgrade-related disruptions. Meanwhile, Whitmore loves to encourage clients to use the sync capabilities of OneDrive, Microsoft’s cloud-storage option.
4. A phased approach. Patel prefers an incremental deployment approach—one that begins with a few tech-savvy, cross-department early adopters. “That way, if you need to pause…you’re not impacting every user across the board,” he said. Patel also recommends documenting any troubleshooting problems encountered along the way.
“You have that for future reference as well when you need to do the next upgrade,” he said.