“In most cases, enterprises take about six to nine months to work through this process,” said Kleynhans. Part of this process involves letting the update simmer for a while, during which time the IT department runs a series of simple validations and pilots, before ultimately deploying across the estate of PCs. “In particular they are refining their processes for dealing with an annual feature update,” he said. While it was originally released in 2015, Kleynhans said most enterprises are only now getting good at supporting it.

Just like its predecessor, Windows 7, Windows 10 is regarded across the business world as a solid, well-supported operating system platform. Stephen Kleynhans, a research vice-president at Gartner, said: “Enterprise IT departments tend to be like supertankers. With four years to go before the end of support deadlines, organisations may feel there is no rush to update their Windows desktops. Microsoft recommends that customers should always install the latest version of Windows before the current version reaches end of servicing to remain supported by Microsoft.” When asked about how the semi-annual releases of Windows are being supported, Microsoft said: “We previously noted that the next version of Windows 10 (version 21H2) will be released later this calendar year, we’ll have more information to share at a later date.

Windows 11 enterprise cost