We have covered lots of stories about the process enterprise has to go through to upgrade Windows. Many businesses that have just recently upgraded to Windows 7, and will likely be skipping Windows 8.x and looking to Windows 10 as the next upgrade. Microsoft is making the Windows 10 upgrade process easier with in-place upgrade.
In-place upgrade offers significant advantages to the traditional ‘wipe-and-load’ upgrade. You will be able to preserve the apps, data, and configuration from the existing Windows installation you are upgrading from. The traditional ‘wipe-and-load’ deployment process will still be supported, and will leverage the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK), Microsoft Deployment Tookit (MDT), and the System Center Configuration Manager.
Microsoft is working hard to ensure that compatibility between Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 is excellent.
The biggest problem for enterprise upgrades is application compatibility. Each app that a business uses and need to be tweaked to work on a newer windows, is a reason to not upgrade. Microsoft has been ‘working hard to ensure that compatibility between Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 is excellent.’ This includes hardware compatibility. Windows 10 is being designed with the same overall hardware requirements as Windows 7 and 8.
One of the reasons Windows Vista left a bad impression was that users were installing it on older XP machines that perhaps weren’t best suited for the new OS. I personally have installed Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 on a laptop that came installed with Windows 7. The performance only saw an upgrade (from a software perspective). While this was a relief for me, for businesses it’s one of the biggest factors that will determine if they skip an upgrade.
In addition to focus on seamless upgrades, Microsoft is developing new runtime configuration tools. These will be used to turn ‘off-the-shelf’ devices into ‘fully configured business devices’ without needing to reimage. For example, the tools will be able to provision Wi-Fi, VPN, and email profiles. They will be able to install apps, language packs, security updates and certificates. Some tasks, such as enrollment into an MDM service (e.g. Microsoft Intune) can be fully automated.
Further reading: Microsoft, Windows 10
