Lessons from Microsoft’s Windows 11 Upgrade

• Microsoft has published a case study about upgrading 190,000 devices to Windows 11 in five weeks.
• Throughout three phases—planning, preparing, and deploying—Microsoft relied on its licensable tools and services to manage and complete the upgrades.
• Despite not having the same resources as Microsoft, organizations can still apply some of the same plans, phases, and processes.

Microsoft has published some deployment guidance for Windows 11 based on its experience migrating 190,000 devices in five weeks. The guidance provides a high-level plan for deploying the new version of the OS, illustrates the phases and tools that may help any organization upgrade, and includes some steps an organization might not have considered. However, it is necessary to keep in mind the many factors that might make Microsoft’s deployment experience unrepeatable by customers.

Learning From Microsoft’s Upgrade Experience

The best lessons an organization can learn from Microsoft’s upgrade experience include dividing the process into three distinct phases—planning, preparing, and deploying—and leveraging tools to understand the scope of the migration while managing the rollout to groups of devices.