I'm facing an uphill battle at work because my company wants to upgrade about 1500 devices to Windows 11. Most of these machines are around 10-12 years old, running 4th Gen Intel i5 processors with hard drives (not SSDs) and were originally designed for Windows 7, although they're currently on Windows 10. There's no budget for new hardware, and they want to stay supported after October. I've already pointed out that someone will need to adjust the BIOS settings for each device to switch from legacy to UEFI, which adds even more complexity. I'm concerned that Microsoft might make future updates impossible for unsupported devices, putting us back in a difficult position. How can I effectively argue against this upgrade?
2 Answers
Honestly, if the company doesn’t have money to replace these decade-old machines, the decision-makers might not care if they’re on unsupported hardware as long as they appear to be functioning. It sounds like there could be some governance issues at play—maybe take a step back and document how much support and productivity these legacy systems are actually costing.
You might not be able to convince them directly, but I suggest you document your concerns. Highlight that the age of the hardware could be leading to increased support costs—these machines may already be costing more in lost productivity than buying new ones. Make sure to inform the right stakeholders and be clear that unsupported updates could lead to even bigger issues down the road. Don't go down with this ship if it sinks; protect yourself by noting your concerns early on.
That sounds like a solid plan, thanks!