Don’t Wait to Begin Planning: It’s Time to Upgrade to Windows 11

By Phil Koster
Jul 9, 2024

As usual, we have another piece of information that, if unheeded,

“

The world as we know it would fall into chaos. Planes would drop from the sky like tables. Society would tear itself apart like angry child with a napkin. Man’s primeval instinct to survive at any cost would lead to terrible violence.

-The IT Crowd (UK) Season 3, Episode 4

”

This is in reference to Windows 10 finally reaching End of Life on Oct 14, 2025. The key takeaway from this blog is: Start planning and executing upgrades to Windows 11 now. Do not wait to begin planning.

[Note: There are a lot of different flavors of Windows 10, but we are specifically referencing the editions most individuals would be interacting with on a day-to-day basis: Home, Professional, Education, and Enterprise. We are not referencing embedded systems with names containing terms like “IoT” or “Long Term Servicing Channel” (LTSC) which you might find in kiosks, thin clients, medical scanner control systems, or industrial control systems.]

What Does “End of Life” Really Mean?

No more updates, including security updates, and no more support from Microsoft in the event of a bug or malfunction. Software vendors will, according to their own schedules & policies, stop writing and/or testing their applications with Windows 10 and no longer guarantee functionality or stability.

Isn’t There an Extended Support Contract? Doesn’t My Managed Service Provider Cover Support for Windows 10?

In short, no. As a Managed Service Provider, we can only support the products that the original vendor will provide support for. If Microsoft doesn’t support it, we can’t guarantee anything. Any product we sell has this same limitation and end of support from the vendor automatically moves our contractual service levels to “best effort”. You might be thinking of Microsoft’s “Extended Security Updates” (ESU) program that allows you to continue to receive security updates classified as critical or important if all of the following conditions are met:

Devices belong to a commercial or educational organization
The contract is purchased prior to the End-of-Life date
The devices are running Windows 10 with the 22H2 update which is the last major update that will be released

The ESU does not include technical support for anything other than the patches that are released under the ESU program. Contracts must be purchased in 12-months increments and the ESU program will only last up to 3 years after the End-of-Life date.

Why It’s So Important to Start Planning Now

Replacing devices takes time.

On average, each device that needs to be upgraded takes 2-4 hours of IT staff time. Full workstation replacements, a needy employee, or an “unusual use case” may need additional time. Outsourced project labor like device upgrades are generally “first come, first served” (based on signed proposal/quote) across the industry. Vista is no exception. It is not unusual for labor backups to be several months long at these industry-wide milestones. We can assist with upgrades in a variety of ways including but not limited to:

Run inventories, assessments, and/or audits to help define the problem better.
General staff augmentation– we can put a person on the project for a set period of time and whatever gets done gets done.
Imaging– preload your custom image on the new devices prior to shipping.
Pre-configuration– we deploy the custom image, domain join systems, follow your custom build procedures post-domain join, and ship.
Remote assistance– We can do the imaging, configuration, and remotely work with the end user to get them logged in, make sure user profile data is transferred, make sure everything works, and make sure the end user feels comfortable on the new system.
White Glove– We can “just handle it” including arranging for on-site visits anywhere in the continental United States.

Windows 11 hardware requirements are different than Windows 10. Perhaps most notably, Windows 11 requires a TPM 2.0 chip.

TPM chips are relatively new, optional, and were not default from most OEMs until just before Windows 11 was released in 2021. TPM chips are generally not something that can be added in the field easily, cheaply, and/or at all. Generally, CPU’s released (not just sold) after 2017 are supported. Intel 8th Generation and newer are compatible but 7th Generation are not and were manufactured up through 2020.

You may need to order more devices than you thought. Did you budget for that? A sudden rush of new hardware orders across the industry may cause order fulfillment delays. We can assist in a variety of ways including but not limited to:

Running inventories, assessments, and/or audits to help define the problem better.
Our Device-as-a-Service program.
We can help soften that financial blow with financing options.
Navigating any supply chain issues that come up to make sure we get hardware on time.

In the unlikely event there aren’t any Windows 11 devices yet, you may not have thought about what applications are compatible with Windows 11.

Some specific, niche software packages or custom written programs may not run properly on Windows 11. Software upgrades to new versions can be expensive, take a lot of man hours, and/or incur down time if not scheduled in advance. Backwards compatibility features can help bridge the gap, but they are not foolproof. We can assist with these problems by:

Running inventories, assessments, and/or audits to help define the problem better.
Professional Services: Server infrastructure upgrade projects and/or cloud migration projects.
We don’t do software development, but we know people that might be able to help.

We’re here to help if you need assistance planning and executing upgrades to Windows 11.