When Microsoft released Windows 10, the vendor assured customers that it was the last release of Windows, but this only lasted until Oct. 5, 2021, when it announced Windows 11.
IT administrators went from no more new Windows deployments, version migrations and wholesale UI changes to taking all of these on, so they will need proper tools to support this. Windows administrators are once again faced with determining the benefits and risks of the new OS, whether it meets their organization’s needs, how to deploy it and how to convince users that the migration is a good thing.
It’s fair for administrators to approach this new OS with trepidation; will Windows 11 be a disaster like Vista and Windows 8 or a welcome change like Windows 7? Moving to Windows 11, like any other new OS, is inevitable. But admins have control over when to make the move. Careful planning and an assessment of infrastructure and business goals will help determine if IT should move to Windows 11 sooner or later.
If the IT department determines it’s time to migrate, one of the first components IT will need to look into is Windows 11 migration tools.
Windows 11 deployment planning
A few factors to consider first: The move to Windows 11 is inevitable and Windows 10 end of support is October 2025. The good news is that IT departments have more than three years to plan this migration at the time this article is published. However, organizations should begin planning soon if they haven’t already. An upgrade to Windows 11 right now while it’s still free may be important to an organization, though it isn’t clear how long this will be the case. Microsoft has provided several resources to help this planning process:
- Windows 11 Onboarding Kit. This is a series of templates, documents PowerPoint slides and other resources to aid in planning the Windows 11 deployment.
- Windows 11 and Office 365 Deployment Lab Kit. This free download kit provides an automatically provisioned lab environment that IT can use for testing Windows 11. It includes evaluation versions of:
- Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit and Windows PE. Admins have used these types of utilities for decades to customize Windows deployments and can also use them for Windows 11. The 32-bit versions of these and other tools will not work for Windows 11.
Deploying Windows 11 the easy way
Microsoft uses Windows Update and WSUS servers to push out Windows 11 like Windows 10. But this isn’t automatic, and issues can arise with the deployment. Consider a failed Windows update attempt. If the Windows 10 PC wasn’t ready for the update due to the minimum requirements, the Windows Update menu will show that it ran a compatibility test and it failed (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The Windows Update menu displays a failed system update due to the desktop not meeting the system requirements.
Another potential problem with using Windows Update for Windows 11 deployment is it isn’t failproof. It’s far from guaranteed that all endpoints will migrate successfully. IT should keep in mind that all new PCs and laptops will have all come with Windows 11. Because Microsoft’s mainstream Windows 10 support will continue until October 2025, organizations with an endpoint refresh cycle of three years or less could wait on migrating Windows 10 systems and let the …….