Windows 10 - was it worth it?

[Paid_Peanuts]

The build updates are something to think about. As I understand it, with pro or enterprise you can defer the build updates for 12 months before it becomes unsupported for security updates. Therefore I plan a summer update to take our machines to the latest build rather than during term time.

 

sparkeh - are you suggesting then you will update your master image yearly and push out the new image to all your machines over the summer holidays and turn off periodic windows updates throughout the year?

This is what we are currently doing. Due to the volatile nature of some of Microsoft's updates we don't push out updates throughout the year. Instead we update our build July time with the past years windows updates and patches then review and deploy over summer.

[sparkeh]

sparkeh - are you suggesting then you will update your master image yearly and push out the new image to all your machines over the summer holidays and turn off periodic windows updates throughout the year?

This is what we are currently doing. Due to the volatile nature of some of Microsoft's updates we don't push out updates throughout the year. Instead we update our build July time with the past years windows updates and patches then review and deploy over summer.

No not quite. Clients will get the monthly updates as before but won't get any build updates until a convenient time (which I think will be the summer).

[foofighterjim]

And the latest new on why you will need Windows 10 eventually: New CPUs will only be compatible with Windows 10, says Microsoft | TechRadar

[Michael]

I agree with above comments - for example, all my Windows 10 networks are built around 10240, with only the cumulative updates being deployed via WSUS, such as the January cumulative update here. It's approx. 278.5MB (32Bit) and 596.5MB (64Bit) in size and installs surprisingly quick given its size.

 

Upgrading from 10240 > 10586 is a complete joke. It's quicker to re-image and I think Microsoft need a reality check on how they think Enterprises (irrelevant of size) deploy such large upgrades.

 

By mid 2016 the next major upgrade - 'Redstone' will be released, so from my perspective, there's a high probability I'll skip 10586 altogether and build a new image based on this. By this time, the 12 month support cycle of build 10240 will be near the end, but I don't see any major 'rush' to deploy quickly, but gradually.