Thanks to everyone for attending this week’s webinar, The Expert’s Guide to Windows 10 Migrations – Avoiding the Hidden Pitfalls. It was a great session, and we wanted to boil down some of the key learnings from the discussion.

Now, according to our live webinar poll, 84% of you are currently at some point in the preparation process for your company’s Windows 10 migration – either thinking about or planning or getting things ready to kick off.
Deploying Windows 10 at scale is not a trivial process. There are many varying factors that need to be considered and addressed at each stage. Overall, the project can be divided into four stages – Plan, Build Execute and Update.

Plan

When planning for Windows 10, not only do you need to ensure that you are application-ready and infrastructure-ready but also device-ready. You need to be prepared to handle both the deployment and ongoing management of Windows 10.
If you want to make use of the security features provided in Windows 10, wipe and load is the way for you and not the in-place upgrade.

Build

The build phase of your project is all about getting your deployment tools, images and applications ready for deployment. To minimize time, cost and disruption, you should be looking to achieve an automation rate of 80-90%. This will ensure your migration will be quicker and smoother.
Three of the most lead challenges you need to think about are –

  • Automating the reconfiguration of your firmware from BIOS emulation to UEFI
  • Automating the migration of user data
  • Automating application migration

Execute

If you’ve sorted out all the automation during your build stage, your execution stage is going to be easy. Now the question is: When can you migrate devices without disrupting users? The best option is to let the users schedule their own migration through a self-service portal.

Update

If you have managed to get past all the hurdles so far and reached this phase, then you are distributing Windows 10 in a fully-automated, user-initiated manner throughout your environment.
All that’s left to think about is managing your regular cumulative monthly quality updates and future Feature Upgrades.
In summary, all the things that you need to keep in mind to ensure your Windows 10 Migration goes smoothly are –

  • Make sure you’re on the latest version of ConfigMgr and are regularly updating it.
  • Application inventory – understand who needs what, which versions you need and prepare them for distribution via ConfigMgr
  • Do a wipe and load installation: plan for the whole backup, install and restore process.
  • Automate the wipe and load: you will need a solution for automating the BIOS to UEFI step. That will remove the need for manual intervention on 80-90% of all your systems.
  • Let users schedule their own updates. Again, that reduces the need for IT to get involved and empowers end users to update without interrupting their work.
  • Finally, be prepared for the CM and Windows 10 servicing model. Streamlining your infrastructure with Nomad gives you that foundation.