Windows devices needing refreshing

[Danny11515]

Hi, I am fairly new to my role as a Senior Technician and I have now been given more responsibility to oversee the development and refreshment of IT equipment at the school. The problem with Schools is that there is little to no budget to really fund a whole new IT suite straight away so I was wondering if anyone else has the experience of going through this madness and managing to have devices that are compliant with the current up to date OS from Windows and not breaking the bank every time. Any help or experience would be greatly appreciated!

[ITGuyNW]

If you install Windows 11 through MDT, it skips the hardware requirements. Might be fine for now but eventually you'll need to upgrade. I use ICT Direct. Can't get better prices and service tbh.

[Brax]

Hi, I am fairly new to my role as a Senior Technician and I have now been given more responsibility to oversee the development and refreshment of IT equipment at the school. The problem with Schools is that there is little to no budget to really fund a whole new IT suite straight away so I was wondering if anyone else has the experience of going through this madness and managing to have devices that are compliant with the current up to date OS from Windows and not breaking the bank every time. Any help or experience would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Danny, welcome to the forum! ICT-Direct frequent this forum and may be able to assist. https://ict-direct.co.uk/ Great value and support

[Olliedawg]

+1 for ICT Direct, had plenty of laptops / desktops from them.

[LeMarchand]

You've said his name 3 times, so @ICTDirect_Dave should appear.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

@Danny11515 Happy to help. Our cheapest option for Windows 11 desktops right now is £170 for HP EliteDesk 800 G4 minis (8th gen i5, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd, 3 year warranty). I can do as many as you want. I've also got pricier options for slightly newer cpus, but honestly these little HPs fly and you'll ave no issues with them

 

 

Drop me a PM if you'd like some more details.. You're a school, so quoting and ordering is nice and simple.

[Rob_D]

ICT direct is great, and probably the best way to stretch the shoestring budgets that are hitting at just the wrong time. But...

For general Office/Classroom PCs your best option is go slow and replace a few at a time in a rolling program (by the time you've done the whole school, it's about time to turn around and start again).

For ICT suites, talk to the bursar/business manager about trying to get it on as a capital expenditure project on the next budget. Those budgets tend to be healthier, but also get snaffled up by building works and the like.

[Bankesy]

@Danny11515

 

My advice may not be relevant to you but it sounds like you're going through something similar to myself right now so I'll offer this:

 

1. From an OS and patch management compliance point of view we manage via InTune, we were very fortunate to receive direct guidance on setting this up from a Microsoft partner so it works very well, happy to share more on this if you want to send me a PM.

 

2. From a hardware replacement angle I have been using the Windows 11 readiness reports in InTune but learnt as recently as today that switching TPM on for devices that have it can significantly impact this number positively so you may not need to replace as many as it first seems. I think one of the other posts here mentions Windows 11 install skipping hardware requirements check, again also learnt today that this is the case now but come to the next feature update for that OS it will not skip the checks so it won't move beyond the current build if hardware doesn't meet standards.

Again if you want to send me a PM I'm happy to discuss hardware suppliers and provide contacts that I have great relationships with when it comes to purchasing.

[PotNoodleTech]

I think you need to gently explain to them above that you can't have nice computers, without buying nice computers. Do they want nice fast fit for purpose 21st century compatible computers yes or no?

 

If yes, hand over some money here's the costs for refurbished, here's the costs for brand new.

 

If no. Don't ever moan at me again when everyone else is moaning about how slow and crap they are.

 

ICT direct or one of the many other refurb shops is a good way of going about it you generally get at least half price compared to new.

Edited March 19, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[jmak]

I think you need to gently explain to them above that you can't have nice computers, without buying nice computers. Do they want nice fast fit for purpose 21st century compatible computers yes or no?

 

If yes, hand over some money here's the costs for refurbished, here's the costs for brand new.

 

If no. Don't ever moan at me again when everyone else is moaning about how slow and crap they are.

 

ICT direct or one of the many other refurb shops is a good way of going about it you generally get at least half price compared to new.

 

Also, you can't have a secure network without buying secure hardware. And paying for software support to get security updates.

 

And if you don't have a network that at least meets the basic security rules, you'll have a much more expensive problem at some point along the road.

 

The machines Dave mentioned are the absolute cheapest you can get away with. I'm sure Dave won't argue when I say that even those have limited capability - after all, he sells much more powerful machines as well!

 

I think most of us have been there, but as had been said above, a reliable, secure IT infrastructure does not come free.

[Chris_Cook]

Its also worth selling it in terms of missed lesson time. How long are users waiting for logins/restarts/crashes etc? 5-10 mins every lesson is a lot over the course of a year, plus it leaves the rest of the lesson unsettled.

 

Its worth timing these and agreeing a limit with SLT. Set it out in terms they care about.

 

Also how much disruption would there be if there was a cyber incident?

[mikes]

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

@Danny11515 Happy to help. Our cheapest option for Windows 11 desktops right now is £170 for HP EliteDesk 800 G4 minis (8th gen i5, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd, 3 year warranty). I can do as many as you want. I've also got pricier options for slightly newer cpus, but honestly these little HPs fly and you'll ave no issues with them

 

 

Drop me a PM if you'd like some more details.. You're a school, so quoting and ordering is nice and simple.

 

What do you do in regards to machines that would run Premier Pro? We have Lenovo desktops at the moment but they have a similar or the same GPU as those EliteDesks (the Intel 630) and they don't really run Premier Pro very well and our head of IT complains about them.

 

Having machines with a dedicated GPU would be nice but I am sure there are now Ryzen CPU's with onboard GPU's that are powerful enough to meet the Premier Pro / After Effects specs.

Our problem atm is Premier Pro runs slow and the screen goes black on playback which seems to be a problem with the Intel 630/610 integrated GPU's

I've told him that the school likely isn't going to spend the majority of its IT budget just on his one classroom but there we go... but when I first started working here in 2008 we refreshed a new room every single year. Of course that was before Chromebooks etc

[PotNoodleTech]

What do you do in regards to machines that would run Premier Pro? We have Lenovo desktops at the moment but they have a similar or the same GPU as those EliteDesks (the Intel 630) and they don't really run Premier Pro very well and our head of IT complains about them.

 

Having machines with a dedicated GPU would be nice but I am sure there are now Ryzen CPU's with onboard GPU's that are powerful enough to meet the Premier Pro / After Effects specs.

Our problem atm is Premier Pro runs slow and the screen goes black on playback which seems to be a problem with the Intel 630/610 integrated GPU's

I've told him that the school likely isn't going to spend the majority of its IT budget just on his one classroom but there we go... but when I first started working here in 2008 we refreshed a new room every single year. Of course that was before Chromebooks etc

 

A good budget way of doing it is to stick to CPU encoding but buy refurbished workstation class with single or dual Xeon CPUs - the HP Z4 we have here are waaaaaay faster than the ed tech lenovos at things like premier and adobe media encoder jobs and not that much more expensive really. (they do take up more room as mid tower sized so bare that in mind).

 

Or if sticking to ed tech, there's the Power plus spec lenovos which i believe come with a better spec i5 and basic nvidia GPU but for 700+ odd you can get a refurb dual xeon workstation which will spank it.

Edited April 9, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[ICTDirect_Dave]

What do you do in regards to machines that would run Premier Pro? We have Lenovo desktops at the moment but they have a similar or the same GPU as those EliteDesks (the Intel 630) and they don't really run Premier Pro very well and our head of IT complains about them.

 

Having machines with a dedicated GPU would be nice but I am sure there are now Ryzen CPU's with onboard GPU's that are powerful enough to meet the Premier Pro / After Effects specs.

Our problem atm is Premier Pro runs slow and the screen goes black on playback which seems to be a problem with the Intel 630/610 integrated GPU's

I've told him that the school likely isn't going to spend the majority of its IT budget just on his one classroom but there we go... but when I first started working here in 2008 we refreshed a new room every single year. Of course that was before Chromebooks etc

 

I can do you HP Z4 G4 towers that are full windows 11 ready and come with xeon cpus and dedicated quadro graphics.

£400-£450 gets you something like the following spec.

 

Xeon w-2135 (6c/12t 3.70GHz)

32GB DDR4 Registered Memory

256GB NVMe SSD

nVidia Quadro P2000 graphics with 5GB GDDR5.

 

They're cracking machines, build for this kind of work and designed to last!

 

Can ramp the cpu core count, ram or ssd capacity up too depending on what you need.

[NeoNebula]

I understand what a challenge it is to manage the renewal of IT equipment in a limited budget, especially in an educational institution. Luckily, I have experience in these situations and can share some ideas with you. First of all, I would recommend assessing the current state of the equipment and determining which ones can be updated or upgraded without the need for complete replacement. Sometimes simple upgrades, such as adding memory or replacing the hard drive with an SSD, can significantly improve the performance of a device.

[Rob_D]

I understand what a challenge it is to manage the renewal of IT equipment in a limited budget, especially in an educational institution. Luckily, I have experience in these situations and can share some ideas with you. First of all, I would recommend assessing the current state of the equipment and determining which ones can be updated or upgraded without the need for complete replacement. Sometimes simple upgrades, such as adding memory or replacing the hard drive with an SSD, can significantly improve the performance of a device.

 

Totally agree, but I imagine the OP (and a lot of others) are like us where Win11 is putting a hard EOL on a lot of hardware that would otherwise keep trucking on okay for a few more years.

[Olliedawg]

I understand what a challenge it is to manage the renewal of IT equipment in a limited budget, especially in an educational institution. Luckily, I have experience in these situations and can share some ideas with you. First of all, I would recommend assessing the current state of the equipment and determining which ones can be updated or upgraded without the need for complete replacement. Sometimes simple upgrades, such as adding memory or replacing the hard drive with an SSD, can significantly improve the performance of a device.

 

I see where you are coming from. However, with the Windows 11 requirements, for most, the issue is either the Processor (requiring 8th gen intel or newer), or TPM 2.0. Not things that can be easily added. We have a fair few 7th gen intel machines which "arent supported".. its a shame as they run perfectly fine

[MartinT]

Run the standard Windows 11 setup (put it somewhere in your network) and it will chunter for quite a while before offering to keep your programs and files.

If it errors with unsupported CPU or TPM, go to regedit.exe and add the bypass hack:

 

- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup

- Add a new Dword32 key, name it AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU

- Give it the value 1

 

Re-run the Windows 11 setup. This should work unless your machine doesn't even have TPM 1.2, in which case it's junk I'm afraid.

It will buy you about a year of extra life in these machines but they will not perform the next feature update.

[Rob_D]

Run the standard Windows 11 setup (put it somewhere in your network) and it will chunter for quite a while before offering to keep your programs and files.

If it errors with unsupported CPU or TPM, go to regedit.exe and add the bypass hack:

 

- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup

- Add a new Dword32 key, name it AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU

- Give it the value 1

 

Re-run the Windows 11 setup. This should work unless your machine doesn't even have TPM 1.2, in which case it's junk I'm afraid.

It will buy you about a year of extra life in these machines but they will not perform the next feature update.

Just running the install from MDT seems to work fine for us, without the reg edits.

I'm a bit leery of running unsupported for anything/anyone important.

[Jobos]

For us it’s only the suite and staff laptops that can run W11 as all the other machines are either core 2 duo, 2nd or 3rd gen.

[DrCheese]

I see where you are coming from. However, with the Windows 11 requirements, for most, the issue is either the Processor (requiring 8th gen intel or newer), or TPM 2.0. Not things that can be easily added. We have a fair few 7th gen intel machines which "arent supported".. its a shame as they run perfectly fine

 

My plan if we don't get the budget to replace our remaining machines on time is to switch them to the LTSC version of Windows 10 - The 2021 version gives you until 2027. If you go back further and install 1809 you get until 2029.

Not ideal as will have to put the LTSC versions of office on them as well, but better than being completely unsupported.

 

I may chance the LTSC version of Windows 11 as in theory that won't get random updates that break it (or ever need feature updating) but it's a risk that MS don't randomly start killing those off during security updates

[jmak]

Personally, I wouldn't run Windows 11 on unsupported hardware in a managed network (corporate, business, education etc). Pretty sure it wouldn't be compliant with Cyber Essentials or any kind of insurance you might have.

 

In education the extended support* is stupidly cheap - $7 for three years. I'm trying to minimise that, but replacing machines at least every 10 years in a professional environment (release of 8th gen to end of 2028) doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation.

 

*Edit: extended support for Windows 10

Edited April 10, 2024 by jmak

[Tefters]

Security security security and hardware reliability it's as simple as that nowadays.

 

You need to have a frank sit down with your SLT and give it to them straight, they rely on IT for EVERYTHING nowadays.

 

Go back 5 maybe 8 years ago and I could afford to have a classroom pc out of action for a few days, now it's 1 day before the "affecting teaching" card is played and SLT are questioning.

 

Ask them how often they swap their cars and if they are leased and why, it's not really any different for computers.

 

Going back to the original security bit, with root kernel hacks at BIOS level and government audits taking place based on their IT recommendations and it starting to be recorded as red marks against the school.

The one that made me laugh the most which we got a yellow for a month ago was WIFI 6 as we are WIFI 5 gen 2 but as I highlighted we don't have any WIFI 6 devices nor was it readily available on the market during our last refresh.

 

Anyways I digress, you can get new machines from Dell at ridiculous specs for £350 a pop with 5 year warranty and their enterprise management for BIOS settings, updates and drivers is superb!

 

In short, schools in general have to start waking up and assigning proper money into IT budgets for both security and compliance or the government will start red crossing them on audits. It is a dangerous world out there on the internet nowadays!

Edited April 10, 2024 by Tefters

[mikes]

Sorry for the incredibly dumb question Tefters but what Government audits have you had? I work for an LEA school in Wales and since 2008 we haven't had a single audit at all - except for a 2 page Google Sheets self filled in Questionnaire that had fairly simple questions (such as do you have off-site backups - it certainly didn't mention wifi5 vs wifi6!) Our LEA do manage our Switches, Firewall and Broadband so perhaps this may be why?

[Tefters]

Sorry for the incredibly dumb question Tefters but what Government audits have you had? I work for an LEA school in Wales and since 2008 we haven't had a single audit at all - except for a 2 page Google Sheets self filled in Questionnaire that had fairly simple questions (such as do you have off-site backups - it certainly didn't mention wifi5 vs wifi6!) Our LEA do manage our Switches, Firewall and Broadband so perhaps this may be why?

Morning Mike,

 

Couldn't tell you to be honest, SLT keep me at arms reach at the best of times but were worried about these visits and the usual red carpet treatment was provided with panic. All I know is we had a government body in auditing several aspects of the school over several days across 3 or 4 weeks.

 

Teaching and Learning, SEN and IT were all under the microscope and were being benchmarked against government advisories and we were getting the red, yellow or green marker treatment.

 

I was asked to provide details on our setups for filtering, safeguarding, internet access, pc rollout project, iPads, online systems, MIS etc...

 

I found it funny because I read none of the government advisories and just treat the school like I would any other business with a sprinkle of common sense.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Tefters