Desktop refresh best practice
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Definitely better off buying the new machine and replacing the drive yourself (heck probably better off adding more RAM yourself too).
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@Dashrender said:
Definitely better off buying the new machine and replacing the drive yourself (heck probably better off adding more RAM yourself too).
And doing that is what led us to buy used instead of new in many cases. Once we have to open the cases and modify them, might as well start off cheap
We get even cheaper by getting machines with no hard drives at all that most people don't want to touch. -
So normally when flattening and doing a fresh OS re-install on and old PC I will purchase a single Windows volume licence and use that multiple times because a single volume licence gives you rights to install on multiple PCs if those PCs have an OEM licence, right?
But what is the situation with the free Windows 10 deal? Will the same work? Or will I have to install Windows 8.1 and then do an upgrade via WSUS? Which will probably be fine, but is a bit time-consuming, I suspect.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So normally when flattening and doing a fresh OS re-install on and old PC I will purchase a single Windows volume licence and use that multiple times because a single volume licence gives you rights to install on multiple PCs if those PCs have an OEM licence, right?
It gives you imaging rights. So you have the right to use the VL license and a single image on all machines where you would have had the rights to put that OS manually.
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I'm curious though.. at what point do you have a Windows 10 license?
Just because you have a Windows 7/8/8.1 license doesn't automatically make it a Windows 10 license, otherwise there would be no point in having the 1 year BS confusion they have.
So you have a bunch of corporately controlled Windows 7/8/8.1 machines - how do you upgrade the license? Do we have to install Windows Pro, then register with our MS ID, then we'll get the upgrade tied to both the computer and presumably our MS ID, then we can wipe that and deploy Windows 10 using the VL media? What a pain! That's doable for probably up to 20 machines, but much past that and you'll living in a nightmare!
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Good question, @Dashrender I have no idea either. I wonder too.
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I think the entire SMB world is waiting for this answer.
Sadly I think the Windows 10 upgrade is going to be exactly like Office Product Key Cards. When you purchased this key card you associated it with your MS account. Then if you needed to reinstall it, you would have to pick a key from those available in your account. This did not work for tiny offices - I had a client who decided to go the cheep route, I was able to associate all 10 of their PKCs with a single MS account, but when looking at the keys through their portal, there was no way to know which was installed on which machine.
I hope that the machine itself somehow generates a unique ID that MS logs that has nothing to do with an MS ID so this machine can pass from user to user without issues.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, you lose all the cost advantage of the cheap, small machines when going that route, sadly.
Depends if your order size is less than 50-100 then yes. But when you are ordering 100-300 computers at a time all they will get the CTO costs next to nothing for you, many times much cheaper than the original config cost would be. There's something to be said for have just a few different model computers (Based on the phase of the refresh cycle) and having next day replacement warranties.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm curious though.. at what point do you have a Windows 10 license?
Just because you have a Windows 7/8/8.1 license doesn't automatically make it a Windows 10 license, otherwise there would be no point in having the 1 year BS confusion they have.
When you reserve the copy and then they send you the serial/download you own the license otherwise you do not.
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@Dashrender said:
I think the entire SMB world is waiting for this answer.
Sadly I think the Windows 10 upgrade is going to be exactly like Office Product Key Cards. When you purchased this key card you associated it with your MS account. Then if you needed to reinstall it, you would have to pick a key from those available in your account. This did not work for tiny offices - I had a client who decided to go the cheep route, I was able to associate all 10 of their PKCs with a single MS account, but when looking at the keys through their portal, there was no way to know which was installed on which machine.
I hope that the machine itself somehow generates a unique ID that MS logs that has nothing to do with an MS ID so this machine can pass from user to user without issues.
Why does it matter, Just keep the keys in a License database, you never need them after that besides record keeping. Use a Windows 10 Vlk and volume media. No real additional housekeeping needed.
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@thecreativeone91 , you're probably right. But I always go back to the I'm getting rid of the computer and I might be donating it, or selling it to staff, so they will need Windows reinstalled with the legal license for home use.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm curious though.. at what point do you have a Windows 10 license?
Just because you have a Windows 7/8/8.1 license doesn't automatically make it a Windows 10 license, otherwise there would be no point in having the 1 year BS confusion they have.
When you reserve the copy and then they send you the serial/download you own the license otherwise you do not.
If this is the case, and you have 100 PC's that are all on a domain and as such you don't get the invite for Windows 10 because it's disabled by MS for domain joined machines, how do you move forward?
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm curious though.. at what point do you have a Windows 10 license?
Just because you have a Windows 7/8/8.1 license doesn't automatically make it a Windows 10 license, otherwise there would be no point in having the 1 year BS confusion they have.
When you reserve the copy and then they send you the serial/download you own the license otherwise you do not.
If this is the case, and you have 100 PC's that are all on a domain and as such you don't get the invite for Windows 10 because it's disabled by MS for domain joined machines, how do you move forward?
Where did you get that it's disabled by MS for domain joined? You can still do it on domain joined. The App is under C:\Windows\System32\GWX as GWX.exe if the update was installed.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm curious though.. at what point do you have a Windows 10 license?
Just because you have a Windows 7/8/8.1 license doesn't automatically make it a Windows 10 license, otherwise there would be no point in having the 1 year BS confusion they have.
When you reserve the copy and then they send you the serial/download you own the license otherwise you do not.
If this is the case, and you have 100 PC's that are all on a domain and as such you don't get the invite for Windows 10 because it's disabled by MS for domain joined machines, how do you move forward?
Where did you get that it's disabled by MS for domain joined? You can still do it on domain joined. The App is under C:\Windows\System32\GWX as GWX.exe if the update was installed.
it's disabled as in you don't get the pop up like you do on non joined domain machines.
And thanks - I hadn't heard about the file being there and manually runnable. If you do this from a VL licensed machine I wonder how it reacts?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
Where did you get that it's disabled by MS for domain joined? You can still do it on domain joined. The App is under C:\Windows\System32\GWX as GWX.exe if the update was installed.
i just tried this and it did nothing.
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Where did you get that it's disabled by MS for domain joined? You can still do it on domain joined. The App is under C:\Windows\System32\GWX as GWX.exe if the update was installed.
i just tried this and it did nothing.
Yes, you have to change some settings to make it work. And in place upgrade isn't supported on domain computers though, you have to download the ISO and install from it.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
Where did you get that it's disabled by MS for domain joined? You can still do it on domain joined. The App is under C:\Windows\System32\GWX as GWX.exe if the update was installed.
i just tried this and it did nothing.
Yes, you have to change some settings to make it work. And in place upgrade isn't supported on domain computers though, you have to download the ISO and install from it.
Do you have a link to the requirements?
I think this is going to kill my Windows 10 upgrade
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No, I don't know it off the top of my head either. One of our DevOps guys used to work at Microsoft so that's how we know how to do it. It's been tested internally to some degree.
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I found this post.
http://www.vladan.fr/windows-10-download-reserve-your-upgrade-gotchas/He says leaving the domain does allow this to work as well.
If your coworker is willing, please post the directions - probably in their own thread
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If you go with the SSD+RAM upgrade, you're very right that you'll see blown PSU's. I also experienced LOTS of blown motherboards with capacitors being the cause. The G6950 isn't a terrible chip for producing heat (73w) but be careful if you have any of their brethren in full fat config running at 100w+ as they will SHRED mobo's after the 5 year mark. Electrolytic caps have a very short life in a hot environment as they're full of liquid. What makes this poignant is for every degree hotter they run at, it dramatically shortens their expected life.
In this example, 7c rise in temp causes 40% reduction in lifespan.
