Microsoft’s upgrade to Windows 11 is largely considered the smoothest we’ve ever had. The Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team was able to upgrade 190,000 employee devices in just five weeks. We learned a lot so, in this post, I’m sharing our learnings with you to help with your deployment journey.
Our success was built around several factors: far fewer app compatibility challenges than in the past, not needing to build out a plethora of disk images, and delivery processes and tools already that were greatly improved during the rollout of Windows 10. We divided our upgrade into three stages: plan, prepare, and deploy.
It would be pretty pathetic if not even Microsoft itself could smoothly update its employees’ machines to the latest version of Windows, but that being said – I do not envy the people tasked with doing so.
I mean, W11 is little more than a service pack for W10 with some new skins…
I should hope they had no issues ‘upgrading’ (applying a windows update)
Considering how almost every W10 feature release had some apps that broke that would be a naive assumption at best that there wouldn’t be an issues.
I have been describing Windows 11 as a Sidegrade. I moved to it on my Windows partition and once I tweaked a few things I can’t really tell the difference just from a users point of view. It looks a bit nicer, That’s about it. It’s not worth your time if you are happy on 10.
I was hoping to hear about internal resistance to the many nonsense UI changes that break the fundamental rule of “don’t add steps,” but of course Microsoft isn’t going to mention that to the public.
I refuse to even think about Win 11 until they drop the BS requirements. I mean according to the batshit brigade at Redmond a $99 E-Waste special from wally world with a Atom garbage chip with just 4Gb of RAM and a 64Gb EMMC that literally feels like a 486 trying to run XP? That is totally an acceptable Win 11 laptop, but a Ryzen 1600af with 32gb of RAM and a tb NVME? Nah man that is trash!
So until they put down the crack pipe and actually have specs that make sense? Nope hard pass, that is too banana boat for me.
That’s Apple Envy for you: Cutting out perfectly capable hardware to sell new OS licenses bundled with new hardware. It makes me miss the Google Envy of the Windows 10 days, aka back when Microsoft gave the OS for free to most users (with very relaxed system requirements too) and tried to make money via online services instead.
Unfortunately, if you want to play the latest games on your computer, eventually you ‘ll have to upgrade to Windows 11 to get any new DirectX features.
i’m keeping a hard eye on Steam as Valve seems to be getting more and more games to run natively on their OS, looking at the list something like 90% of my Steam library will already run on their version of Linux no problemo.
So while my main rig with its R5 3600 and 32Gb of RAM will run Win 11 without issue I’m certainly not gonna toss the wife’s R5 1600AF or even the grandkid’s FX 8350 both of which have 16Gb of RAM and a Tb of SSD a piece just because Redmond wants to push some E-Waste specials during a global chip shortage, not when those machines do everything they want perfectly fine and we can just switch to Steam OS or whatever Valve calls it in 2025.
What’s fun is I still use my VIA C7 @ 2GHz with 1GB of RAM, Nvidia Geforce FX5200 PCI and play Unreal or Battlezone no problemo. Playing recent game is a no go, but for that your have consoles that fit their role (hardware optimized, no incompatibility). It just depends if you want to depend on an artisuperficial planned obsolescence, since my cherished games cannot run on newer Windows version. So I *have* to maintain my old rig just to use old software.
Crap.
Have you tried Zorin OS? I have a truly ancient EEE-PC (remember those?) with the AMD APU and it runs surprisingly well and there is a step by step on installing Proton on Zorin on YouTube and if its the old 1998 Battlezone on the Proton website its listed as running OOTB as well as the original Unreal.
So it might be worth giving it a shot as your Via is frankly a racecar compared to my netbook LOL and since it’ll run on a CD or flash stick you don’t have to mess up your old Windows install to give it a go.
@bassbeast Thank for the info, I’ll get a look into it, but currently my rig works flawlessly. Btw the VIA C7 is an In-order execution unit with only 1 core, but it performs quite admirably compared to what the typical neigh sayers could tell. But I don’t use it for number crunching, so I don’t care, by main motivation is the lowest power consumption possible
Directx is more ore less dead. You only need it for legacy support.
You seem to have a radically different subjective definition for the term “dead” than most other people.
What’s the Khronos equivalent of DirectStorage?
Exactly…
kurkosdr,
I’m not going to speculate on the future of games supporting direct X, but I can’t imagine the number of titles supporting much less requiring direct storage is anything more than minuscule at this time. It only just got deployed to windows users last month.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directstorage-api-available-on-pc/
It kind of remains to be seen what the uptake will be.
I am curious about benchmarks though. Here they show direct storage saving about .3s for ~5GB compared to win32.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/with-microsoft-directstorage-game-load-times-dip-to-2-seconds-or-less
What a strange ( and so incorrect ) Thing to say.
Put down the crack pipe yourself. You sound like you’re hitting it way too hard.
Butthurt fanboi much? Go look at the Walmart website where they are selling $99 windows 11 E-Waste specials which according to MSFT’s own requirements are perfectly acceptable despite the fact that even getting one of those to load a website can be measured in minutes but a 1950x or i7 7700k with 32GB of RAM and a 2000mbps NVME? Nah man that isn’t capable of giving you “The win 11 experience”
So go wave your little fanboi flag somewhere else, we’re not buying your BS.
This same conversation has been going on in windows land since at least windows 95. This is what Microsoft does, either by greed or just happenstance. If you run windows, this is what you sign up for.
Whaaaa? Before Windows 11, the various Windows versions would support some quite old CPUs, down to CPUs that could barely run the OS. For example, Windows 95 supports 386DX CPUs despite the fact that running Windows 95 on a 386DX led to a barely usable experience. Windows XP supports Penitums (yes, Penitums, no numeric suffix). Windows 7 supports the Williamete Pentium 4s (from the year 2000). Even Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 kept the threshold at a level that didn’t exclude usable hardware.
But here we have Windows 11, where perfectly capable CPUs (that can still run frickin’ games!) are being excluded. For example, I have a laptop with an i7-4930MX with 32GB RAM and 256GB m2 SSD, which can play games thanks to its still-capable GPU, and which btw initially shipped with Windows 8.1, but for some reason, it’s deemed incapable of running the god-darn OS. In fact, Intel CPUs three generations down from the 4930MX are also unsupported, so I lost another laptop (Z70-80) . This is what Apple customers signed up for.
Uhh before Windows 11? The system reqs for Windows were if anything insanely lax, here are the specs for installing Windows 10…
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS or 20 GB for 64-bit OS
Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
Display: 800 x 600
By those specs pretty much anything made in the past 20 years could run windows 10 and I actually have it running on a 2006 C2Q with 8GB of RAM and a whopping 120GB SSD and ya know what? Perfectly fine as a netbox for the grandkids, boots fast and has no issue doing 1080P video.
No its only with windows 11 they went from “Nah it’ll be fine” to “We want to be Apple so buy the latest and greatest” but unlike Apple where even their bottom end you get really capable hardware they are still letting OEMs crank out $99 E-Waste specials so the entire system requirements come off as what they are…total bullshit.
Trust me go try one of the E-Waste specials and tell me with a straight face that is a better Win 11 experience than a Ryzen 1600Af or a 7700k could provide as you wait 10 minutes for a single YouTube page to load only for it to be a slideshow even at 480p.
The upgrade requirements for Windows 11 are not defined in terms of performance. Which is what it throwing a lot of people off.
Not defending it, just pointing out that MS seems to be interested in enforcing a specific ISA revision as the baseline for their x86 OSs from now on. I assume to simplify their overall code-base across their PC and Xbox divisions, and to be past some of the mitigation/vulnerabilities found in Spectre et al.
The minimum supported CPU for Windows was always defined by ISA. For example, Windows 95 required a 386DX because it needed a 32-bit CPU (it also supported a 386SX, although it was practically unusable with Windows 95). Windows XP required a Pentium because of some new instructions. Windows 7 required a Williamette Pentium 4 because of SSE2.
The thing is, Microsoft used to keep the ISA cut off to something that didn’t exclude perfectly capable hardware. This is what has changed with Windows 11.
what you consider “perfectly capable” HW is not what MS wants in terms to unifying their code base.
The previous requirements were tied to performance levels, which were correlated with principal ISA revs in x86. But that is not the case with the multiple ISA extensions to x86 with are not necessarily correlated with raw performance.
Not saying it was smart of Microsoft of alienating so many customers. But I can see why they’re trying to use a big stick to steer their codebase into something that removes a lot of headaches for them. Windows is not going to be their main cash cow, so they’re probably trying to prune as much resources as they can from it. And their current codebase must be a nightmare.
Which is not what Windows customers signed up for. Microsoft has a history of supporting existing hardware (as long as it’s capable of running the OS) even if it makes the codebase a bit more complicated, and that has been historically one of the biggest draws for the OS. Windows users have come to expect that they can avoid motherboard replacements if the CPU can run the OS at anything approaching usable performance levels. Can you imagine if, back in the Windows 95 era, they said “we are only supporting Pentiums”? Or if, in the Windows 7 era, they said “we only support Core2 Duo and above”?
I don’t know if Windows is or it’s not their biggest cash cow, but it’s a huge stronghold, in the sense that it’s the only complete implementation of the win32/win64 API. Mishandling the Windows stronghold is dumb af.
True. But remember that back in the win95 era, there were a lot of PCs being cut off and left out in the cold. Never mind NT which had even more stringent requirements.
Every new version of Windows manages to piss off a small vocal contingent of users.
I assume that Windows 10 will be the legacy support version of Windows, that will be around forever. And Windows 11 and on will be their new branch. And the adoption dynamics will follow the same patterns.
javiercero1,
I don’t remember that. Upgrading the harddrive and RAM may have been in order, but I agree with kurkosdr, windows customers have traditionally not expected such seemingly arbitrary cutoffs from microsoft. You mention the win95 era, but that OS supported older CPUs and this was at a time when there was more differentiation between generations.
https://kb.iu.edu/d/aezf
And here’s win98 too…
https://kb.iu.edu/d/afqp
Now win98 needed a 486, but that was a pretty long lifespan for the 386.
Is there a real demonstrable problem with windows 11 supporting earlier CPUs? Today ISA differentiation has become so subtle that most developers don’t even care about what models their users have, just the obvious things like ram. Obviously microsoft can do what it wants, but I think nearly all of us are in agreement that they haven’t done a good job explaining why they’re doing this.
They are doing it for the same reason as every other version of windows: to drive software and hardware sales. Microsoft sells more Windows licenses to OEMs than individuals, so OEMs are their main customers (as far as MS is concerned)
Windows value proposition, regarding compatibility, has always been about the software (catalog) not the hardware. This is microsoft guarantees that your old windows program will run in the newest version of windows on the latest hw. Not that your old hardware will run the newest version of windows and the latest programs.
The only thing that seems to be constant is that each windows release seems to generate the same comments.
again, not saying that I agree or have any opinion either way. Just pointing out how things operate.
javiercero1,
Sure, but the difference is that in the past legit consumer demand was driving sales, not arbitrary cutoffs. Every hardware upgrade cycle brought significant gains for users – the difference was night and day. Today it’s “meh”, typical users don’t want or need new hardware like they used to. As almost everyone is attesting, we have perfectly usable hardware already and there’s much less natural demand (without resorting to planned obsolescence).
I understand why you’d say that, but it’s not accurate. If you remember win95 then you’ll remember that the demand for it was absolutely crazy with lines going for days to install retail box copies on their existing hardware.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsofts-windows-95-software-turned-192528654.html
Heck it’s statistically probable that many of us who are critical of microsoft now were among the fans of microsoft then. They’ve gotten worse and today’s microsoft relies on coercive sales tactics that they didn’t used to have to.
Windows 95 was a very long time ago. So the same context doesn’t apply. FWIW Win95 it drove a tremendous amount of HW sales, because you basically needed a pentium to be usable.
I still don’t understand what the issue is; Windows 10 is going to be supported for a very long time, so if Windows 11 lacks any value proposition for you, you don’t have to bother with it.
javiercero1,
Yes, that’s what we’re all saying. It didn’t used to be necessary for windows to have superficial requirements to sell new operating systems. There was great demand all around for both OEM and retail sales, it’s not what it used to be and microsoft’s sales tactics reflect that.
The goal has always been the same: sell software licenses.
It’s the same as it ever was. It’s just that the marketing illusion worked better when you were younger.
javiercero1,
Of course making money is the goal, but that doesn’t do anything to dismiss complaints over new sales tactics like planned obsolescence as kurkosdr brought up…
I don’t know if it is planned obsolescence; your HW and copy of Windows 10 does not suddenly stop to work. And so far there is very little that Windows 11 can do which 10 can’t.
javiercero1,
There’s no need for anything to be “sudden”, it merely has to accelerate the lifecycle prematurely to meet the business goals of planned obsolescence.
People wanting free OS version upgrades should embrace FOSS alternatives and stop wasting time with conspiracy theories…
javiercero1,
That doesn’t describe anyone here though and you are misrepresentting the complaints. Go re-read everyone’s posts, the problem isn’t paying for OS upgrades, it’s having to buy new hardware to upgrade the software. The world has an e-waste problem and this is moving backwards.
Maybe you should re-read my comments.
Your old HW is still supported by your current copy of Windows. There’s no need to upgrade your HW or Version of Windows if e-waste is of such a concern to you.
The word has many problems, that still doesn’t make you entitled to a new product by a private corporation. This is the usual bitchfest whenever a new version of Windows/Mac gets released.
javiercero1,
E-waste ought to be of concern to all of us though. It takes more than a select few to take action. We’re passing our burdens to future generations. It’s not enough just to think about the e-waste created today either, we also need to look ahead to mitigate e-waste in the medium and long term future as well. This means we have to be critical of the companies that are using planned obsolescence to artificially induce shortened product lifecycles. Such policies inevitably result in more e-waste. Some people aren’t informed, don’t care, or maybe they’re on the payroll of companies that use planned obsolescence to maximize sales such that they’re afraid their livelihood would suffer. It makes this a tough nut to crack.
Your current HW works fine and so does your current version of Windows. And it is expected to be supported for a few years more.
javiercero1,
A few years isn’t great. And in IT many of us need to support windows 11 and don’t have the luxury of putting it off.
We need to acknowledge the reality that operating system vendors have a lot of influence over hardware prematurely becoming e-waste. This isn’t just a microsoft problem, it’s a problem across the board. These companies can do better and we should be encouraging them to do so!
You are desperately trying to create an issue where there is none. Windows 10 will be functional and supported for a very long time. Having a PC being functional for 10+ years seems to be the opposite of planned obsolescence.
Each choice has it’s downsides: you can chose to reduce e-waste and use old inefficient HW which in turn increase pollution elsewhere in the energy consumption end on the equation.
For long time? 2025 – it`s just 3 years
Microsoft have the same tools available to the rest of us. These things don’t “just happen”, they are the result of hard work and planning all the way from the OS devs to the support staff hitting the deploy button.
So well done to their team for such a success story!
Any examples of a linux or mac estate of 190,000 employee devices being upgraded going this well? We have a relative handful of Mac devices and even minor upgrades rarely go this well.
macOS upgrades are horrible. Even on an m1 Max a simple ‘security update’ takes 30 minutes.
Their updates breaking basics setups that use displaylink is the kind of thing I find unforgivable in an OS upgrade
Windows 11 is a huge failiure. There is now over a year in more people using windows xp than windows 11. Never has the uptake of a windows version (not even vista) been so slow.
Did you mean Windows 7 instead of Windows XP? If so, holy shit it’s actually true:
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202103-202203
I mean, wow! Here we have an OS that dropped security updates for home users in 2020 and will drop all security updates in 2023 (even if you are an ESU user) and won’t officially run on CPUs made after 2017, but somehow it beats Windows 11 despite the fact Windows 11 is given as a free upgrade to anyone (well, to anyone with a system which has a CPU that meets the cutoff, anyway).
This is Microsoft’s ticking time bomb: Too many users on old versions of Windows that could jump ship to ChromeOS or SteamOS instead of moving to Windows 11. Oh, and did I mention the Steam Deck is being scalped on eBay due to high demand?
And now Microsoft is making it worse by forcing people to buy all-new systems. Apple Envy is a disease indeed.
PS: If you are actually running Windows XP, please stop. Even with the POSReady trick, your security updates stop at 2019, and there is only a single browser still updated for Windows XP.
This seems to be common for MS OSs. Their ecosystem has huge inertia. So the oldest “recently” supported version seems to be always larger, in adoption, than the newer one.
Also, Windows is truly a worldwide ecosystem. So the USA dynamics are not representative of it’s whole; i.e. a lot of other markets have longer HW replacement cycles (i.e. they use old systems or lower end is more common), or they don’t have the same cloud/always on internet dynamics as well, so Windows 7 will be around forever as it seems to do what most people need to do with old PCs that are not on the internet for everything. Also, piracy.
Windows 10 will become the Windows 7 of whatever comes after Windows 11. And on and on.
Unless you’re not purchasing a new system, there doesn’t seem to be much value added for any customer whose needs are met by Windows 10 at this point to upgrade.
Until Win 11 can roll out on older hardware it won’t be taken seriously, or taken up widely.
At the moment nobody can blow their IT budget replacing perfectly functional Win 10 based hardware with new hardware just to get to Win 11 no matter what Win 11 offers. The hardware vendors have past the point where features add functionality, for most users that opportunity exited the building when notebooks ran the full working day on an overnight charge.
You get a lot of industry chatter about this is better, that is worse, faster, smarter, etc., etc., but for 70% of PC users which really covers all of business and most of education it’s all elitist industry dribble.
I’m not surprised MS bragged about the roll out, because I was quite surprised to hear how diverse the MS ecosphere really is, no wonder they pushed hard for WSL given how many MS Devs work day to day off a non-Windows platforms. But we shouldn’t be surprised by this because it’s the reality of needing specific software tools (the best tools) for the problems you work on, and nothing to do with an OS itself. WSL brought a suite of such tools onboard Win 10, covering the needs of most users.
So I’m not sure what Win 11 can really offer me, at least not until my hardware starts to crumble!
cpcf,
I agree, win11 doesn’t have a killer application for the masses to demand it. Most windows upgrades these days are prompted by loosing either hardware or software support. Naturally people won’t like it, but planned obsolescence is a tried and true solution to increase sales and that seems to be part of microsoft’s master plan.
It’s all about lifecycle. In 2020 302 Million pc/laptops were sold. That’s the new userbase of Windows 11. In a few years there will be a Billion Windows 11 without including any current systems being upgraded. Microsoft learnt the lesson from Windows XP, don’t support machines that are to old or you make yourself a timebomb for later.
Why do nerds without disposable income think they are representative of the market as a whole?
First off, no major IT organization rolls out the latest version of Windows until it has been fully certified, which usually means that corporate/professional windows desktops are usually at least 1 version behind. Which is why Windows 10 will be around for a very long time.
Second, all new consumer windows devices will be Windows 11. That is hundreds of millions of seats within a couple of years. And by then corporate IT will have moved on to 11.
Microsoft doesn’t give a crap about old PCs, because they already support those with Windows 10. If you can’t afford a new PC, you most definitively wasn’t going to pay for a Win 11 license anyway. So I have no idea where this entitlement to a free upgrade comes from.
Microsoft is not dumb, they understand their upgrade cycles perfectly at this point. For the most part the tend to have 3 windows versions concurrently.
It’s always the same nosense. By the time Windows 12 comes around, the same people who bitched about Windows 11 will be with the same complaints.
javiercero1,
You can stick fingers in your ears and deny it till you’re red, but just because you don’t personally care about planned obsolescence and e-waste doesn’t mean these aren’t real social issues. Many people are concerned but like I said it isn’t enough for them to act individually if so many more people remain ignorant of our macro affects on the planet. We need to open up our eyes and admit that today we are collectively doing a terrible job of it. Unfortunately attitudes like yours are enablers for corporations to be worse rather than better. If we want to make the planet better and not worse for future generations then all corporations including MS are going to have to do much better!
You were originally right to say “it is expected to be supported for a few years more.”, that’s not “a very long time” though.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/sustainable-software/examining-the-carbon-footprint-of-devices/
And you can do all sorts of tangential subjective emotional arguments all you want. But that still don’t make them even remotely related to the technical topic at hand.
By the end of it’s support cycle: Windows 10 will be 10 years old. That means that it has allowed 10/15/or ever 20+ year old HW to remain functional by that point.
Windows 11 is another version that supports a different tier/spectrum of HW. You are not forced to upgrade to it in order for your device to remain functional.
You can blame Windows of many sins. But “planned obsolescence” is not one of them.
javiercero1,
That’s a straw man. No one was complaining about windows 10’s lifecycle, they were complaining about windows 11 hardware support.
It is if people and corporations end up buying new hardware only to satisfy the software. If we are going to get serious about tackling e-waste and carbon emissions, then we have to get serious about confronting all of the business practices that contribute to faster life cycles including software.
You would have us all ignore the role that software/operating systems have in contributing to shorter lifecycles, but that’s ignorant. The fact is that the lack of software & operating system support play a prominent role in hardware waste as quoted from the earlier link. So while you can keep making excuses for the offenders, those excuses are going to be on the wrong side of history as we cause more and more damage to the planet. Our grand children will ask why we did this, and the truthful answer is that people were too ignorant, self-entitled, and greedy to think about the future.
Can you please stop throwing the names of fallacy in discussion until you learn what they actually mean?
I’m referring to Windows 10 support because it makes your “planned obsolesce” claim moot. Your current PC is functional and supported for many years. It does not stop working nor it becomes obsolete just because Windows 11 exists.
Microsoft is not entitled to your hard earned dollars, and you’re not entitled to their products. If your current PC doesn’t support Windows 11 you have 2 simple options; keep using Windows 10 and continue your merry life, or buy a new PC that Supports Windows 11 and continue living your merry life. Really not hard concept to grasp. Alas, once again, here we are…
javiercero1,
Stop using them.
I’ve already explained why that is wrong.
That’s true and I think that’s the best argument you’ve made. While companies are at fault, we need to take some responsibility too. For this to have any meaningful impactful though we need to speak up and educate people. Even so changing the status quo isn’t easy when so many powerful corporations are complicit. History shows they’re unlikely to budge until just before the regulatory action is taken, unfortunately. Then they suddenly they start making changes as a last ditch effort to avoid regulators.
Some of us don’t have a choice, like I already stated, and win10 support is only expected to last a few years more, as you’ve already stated. Microsoft certainly isn’t the worst (looking at you android vendors), but still all companies need to commit to doing better if we actually want to make a dent in the problem of good hardware becoming waste over lack of software support. This is a problem we must tackle together. Otherwise it becomes a tragedy of the commons where no progress gets made because everyone is out for themselves, which is how we got here
I came here to read about Windows 11, I am afraid I don’t care much for your own personal virtue signal fest about saving the world.
Cheers.
javiercero1,
I understand. Not everyone can agree on priorities. People not caring is what makes practically all ecological challenges so hard to solve in practice and many people believe that profits are more important. I think it speaks to human nature that we don’t care about impacting the future until things begin affecting us in the here and now. That is a simple philosophy, but it leaves future generations to pay the consequences. The ruts become increasingly difficult and expensive to escape from.
I have been ecologically conscious since the cradle. I really don’t need you boomersplaining me environmentalism.
This is an article about Windows not Greenpeace.
javiercero1,
Saying that you are ecologically conscious while excusing industry practices that lead to more waste requires a degree of cognitive dissonance. Operating system vendors including MS are extremely involved in determining the product lifecycles for billions of devices. Even just putting a little bit of effort to support products longer objectively goes a very long way. While I have to respect that environmentalism isn’t everyone’s life mission, I honestly don’t see the merit in being hostile to those of us calling on people and companies to commit to doing more.
I can accept that you might not like the way I cover the topic for whatever reason, but I don’t accept that we shouldn’t cover it at all or that the tech companies involved shouldn’t be criticized for not doing better. I know this much: Ignoring the problems isn’t a solution. So then let me ask you more directly: how can we cover such topics in a way that won’t offend people like you? Or are you really asserting that any criticism of the OS vendors like MS for playing any part in e-waste should just be off the table?