On January 14, 2020 Microsoft support for its Windows 7 Operating system will end.

Large organizations such as governments have looked previously to secure ongoing support packages direct with Microsoft for many millions of dollars, here's a way your organization can migrate before

Hardware refresh

If you your computers had Windows 7 preinstalled when you purchased then the hardware is around 5 years old which is over the recommended 3 years hardware refresh period. Not only will your machines be out of hardware warranty, but they will probably still used hard disks instead of solid state harddrives.

This might be the ideal time to purchase new machines which come with Windows 10 preinstalled to save on the license purchase.( currently 220 GBP for a retail copy ). For large refreshes you can use the Microsoft Deployment Technologies with their User State Migration Tool (USMT) for Seamless migrations

If your machines came with Windows 10 Licenses on them , then you can use one of the following migration routes to upgrade, if not then you can purchase Windows 10 licenses from your Microsoft Partner

Manual Inplace Upgrade

This is advisable for 50 or fewer computers where you have enough time to run this manually, takes around 3 hours.

To get started, go to the Download Windows 10 webpage and click the Download tool now button. After the download completes, run the Media Creation Tool.

MDT Windows 10 Upgrade

You can set up Microsoft Deployment Technologies Server and using this workflow , this will enable you to deploy the installation media for the Windows 10 Upgrade across multiple offices

You can script the upgrade to take place automatically without user intervention

3 April 2018

Office 365 will drop TLS 1.0 and 1.1 Support starting 31st October 2018

3 April 2018

Microsoft has announced that as of October 31st ( Moved from the 1st March ) it will be dropping TLS 1.1 Support and only allowing TLS 1.2

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2018/02/09/an-update-on-office-365-requiring-tls-1-2/

What you need to do

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4057306/preparing-for-tls-1-2-in-office-365

1 ) Check for 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Devices and make sure this KB is installed : https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/3140245/update-to-enable-tls-1-1-and-tls-1-2-as-a-default-secure-protocols-in

Make sure this Reg key is set

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/schrimsher/2016/07/08/enabling-tls-1-1-and-1-2-in-outlook-on-windows-7/

2) Make sure you are not using any of these devices which do not support TLS 1.2

Android 4.3 and earlier versions
Firefox version 5.0 and earlier versions
Internet Explorer 8-10 on Windows 7 and earlier versions
Internet Explorer 10 on Win Phone 8.0
Safari 6.0.4/OS X10.8.4 and earlier versions

3) Check your devices e.g. MFD and Phone Systems support TLS 1.2

23 March 2017

Two top reasons to migrate to Windows 10

23 March 2017

No New Processor Support

Intel's new 7th generation of i series chip, Kaby Lake will officially be supported only by the company’s flagship Windows 10 OS. Intel also appeared to be on board with Redmond’s decision, saying it

“will not be updating Win 7/8 drivers for 7th Gen Intel Core per Microsoft’s support policy change.”

AMD is also on the same bandwagon

"To achieve the highest confidence in the performance of our AMD Ryzen desktop processors (formerly code-named ‘Summit Ridge’), AMD validated them across two different OS generations, Windows 7 and 10,” AMD said in a statement in response to a question from PCWorld. “However, only support and drivers for Windows 10 will be provided in AMD Ryzen desktop processor production parts.”

You cannot buy Windows 7 or 8.1 anymore

As of October 31st 2016 Microsoft Ended the sale of Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 pre installed on Machines. Any new purchase of Hardware will now land your enviroment in a mixed version of Windows making it harder to :

Create a standard SoE across your enviroment
Creat User training as this will need to be duplicated across two Operating Systems
Testing Company Applications

There are multiple ways to roll out Windows 10 across your organisation such as Microsoft Deployment Tool , Image X and or Acronis True Image. Speak to Response IT today about solutions and time lines of a Windows 10 Deployment!