I'm looking to refresh our retired Microsoft Surface Laptop 3s so that users can take them home. What's the quickest method to wipe these laptops and reload Windows? Keep in mind that they are set up with BitLocker and have corporate licenses. Originally, they came with Windows 10, but we need to upgrade to Windows 11. The challenge is that we don't have much time for this process, but we've decided to let users have the laptops if they want them. I've done this manually with a USB before, but I've faced issues with Surface laptops because the keyboard and mouse don't function without injecting drivers in WinPE.
2 Answers
For a quick solution, you could use the Surface IT Toolkit for USB recovery. It has all the necessary drivers included, so your keyboard and mouse will work fine during the setup. Here's the link to check it out: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-it-toolkit-usb-recover.
Just a heads up, some of the Atom Z8700 processors don't support Windows 11, which might not make them worth the effort for what you're planning. However, the Surface Laptop 3 should be compatible for the upgrade. You can refer to this Microsoft page for a list of compatible devices: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/which-surface-devices-can-be-upgraded-to-windows-11-76c3c125-82e0-4d1e-9550-12ed09f9058e.
He mentioned using Surface Laptop 3s specifically, which are totally capable of running Windows 11!