andyt57 Posted January 9, 2019 Posted January 9, 2019 I know I'm a bit late in the game here but I support 4 small primary schools who are now being forced to look at upgrading by the end of the year. They are all currently running Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7 Professional clients. All the devices were bought with Windows 7 licences or the schools bought Select licences for older machines. None of the schools have an OVSES licence for Windows or Office and cannot afford them. I am trying to get my head around the upgrade options so that I can put costed details to the heads and governors. Looking through the messages on here it would appear that Windows 10 Professional is no longer an option as I cannot remove all the Microsoft installed bloatware, even though it would cost £52.62 for an upgrade licence. I have been quoted over £100 for a Windows 10 Enterprise Education perpetual licence which is totally unaffordable. What have other small primary schools done in this situation? Andrew
DJ-1701 Posted January 9, 2019 Posted January 9, 2019 I believe @mavhc uses Windows 10 Professional, does require extra work to remove advertising IIRC. At our Primary we went for OVS-ES as it was cost effective.
localzuk Posted January 9, 2019 Posted January 9, 2019 It all depends what you mean by affordable really. All the schools I manage now use OVS-ES to deal with this, but its a yearly cost rather than perpetual. The other option is to look at replacing the PCs themselves, and getting new ones with Windows 10 on instead - more costly up front, but machines still running Windows 7 have got to be getting on a bit now anyway.
atcoates Posted January 9, 2019 Posted January 9, 2019 (edited) All my schools are pretty small and we have agreements at each school. If you just include the staff that work at a computer you can get the count down pretty low to make it cost effective. Edited January 9, 2019 by atcoates
mavhc Posted January 10, 2019 Posted January 10, 2019 Yeah, special school so the Staff/Pupil ratio is way higher than normal, so Staff based licencing is terrible. I just upgraded Win 7 pro to Win 10 pro for free (still works today oddly, it's as if MS really don't want people using Win7), and then used GPP to set a load of registry options, been working fine for 2 years
Ertech Posted January 10, 2019 Posted January 10, 2019 You could go with Wind 10 Pro Reufurb devices.. speak to Dave at ICT Direct: Refurbishers of Quality School Computers, Laptops, Servers - ICT Direct - they have good deals
ItsOggy Posted January 11, 2019 Posted January 11, 2019 Windows 7 and 8 license keys still activate Windows 10 installs, just use the license keys they have, just use the standard 10 installer off MS's site. If you have devices with the Key embedded in the BIOS, a lot of Win 8 era devices started this, 10 just installs and never even asks for a key! Try it one one device first if you want to check it works. Server will have to be paid for.
andyt57 Posted January 24, 2019 Author Posted January 24, 2019 I have already tried this. A Windows 7 Pro licence validates Windows 10 Pro. But I can't get rid of the Microsoft bloatware by GPO. Some newer boxes install Window 10 Pro directly, but same problem. Some laptops (bought cheaply before i took over the school) install Windows 10 Home, so I'll have to buy a licence for those. I'm inching towards Windows 10 Education and will have to price up the Select+ and OVSES prices for the schools. Andrew
andyt57 Posted January 24, 2019 Author Posted January 24, 2019 You could go with Wind 10 Pro Reufurb devices.. speak to Dave at ICT Direct: Refurbishers of Quality School Computers, Laptops, Servers - ICT Direct - they have good deals I spoke to them at BETT yesterday and that may be one way to go. But they provide Windows 7 or 10 Pro installed so I would still need a Windows 10 Education licence for each machine. Andrew
andyt57 Posted January 24, 2019 Author Posted January 24, 2019 Yeah, special school so the Staff/Pupil ratio is way higher than normal, so Staff based licencing is terrible. I just upgraded Win 7 pro to Win 10 pro for free (still works today oddly, it's as if MS really don't want people using Win7), and then used GPP to set a load of registry options, been working fine for 2 years The problem is, as I understand it, that Windows 10 Pro from the 1805 rollout no longer implements some of the policies that remove the bloatware and lock it down - you need Windows 10 Education for that. Andrew
mavhc Posted January 24, 2019 Posted January 24, 2019 The problem is, as I understand it, that Windows 10 Pro from the 1805 rollout no longer implements some of the policies that remove the bloatware and lock it down - you need Windows 10 Education for that. Andrew Yeah, it ignores some, but you can still registry hack it via GPP. If your staff/devices ratio isn't as bad as ours then it might be worth paying per year. Is the bloatware really a massive problem though?
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