I'm dealing with a situation where my company plans to upgrade around 1500 unsupported devices to Windows 11. Most of these machines are about 10-12 years old and run on 4th Gen i5 processors with antiquated hard drives, initially designed for Windows 7 but now running Windows 10. Unfortunately, there's no budget for new equipment, and management insists on moving to a supported version of Windows by October. Despite my warnings about needing adjust BIOS settings to UEFI and the risk of Microsoft halting unsupported upgrades in future updates, they're still pushing for the upgrade. I'm looking for ways to convince them that this is a bad idea.
5 Answers
You could suggest getting refurbed machines that can handle Windows 11. That way, they get the update without the headache of tweaking old hardware that’s likely to fail anyway. It's often cheaper than trying to upgrade their current fleet.
If they do go through with the upgrade, why not find a way to showcase the nightmare they shouldn't be jumping into? Try installing Windows 11 on one of the older machines and show them what kind of errors pop up. That could give them a reality check. But then again, if they’re already aware of the issues and still want to proceed, it might be a case of just documenting everything so you have a record when problems arise.
Look at the man-hours involved in upgrading all these old machines compared to buying new ones that are already compliant with Windows 11. The costs might surprise them! You might also want to emphasize that running outdated hardware means more support calls, which translates into more lost work time as well. In the long run, they might realize it's just not worth the hassle.
Honestly, it sounds like they don't care much about the hardware since it's old and still functioning, which can be problematic. You might want to highlight how the age of the machines is costing the company more in support and productivity than getting new devices would. Keep it professional and document your concerns with potential future failed upgrades and the impact on productivity. Good luck, but the reality is, they probably won’t change their minds until the situation becomes critical.
Microsoft has been slowly moving away from supporting the hacky ways that allowed Windows 11 on older hardware. Even if you get them upgraded, there's no guarantee of updates down the road, which could leave them vulnerable. You could pull the cybersecurity card and stress how running unsupported systems could lead to issues in the event of a security breach.
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