Microsoft Ignite: What's new with Windows 10 Deployment

One of the sessions that I sat in on this week at Microsoft Ignite in Atlanta was an in-depth session about deploying Windows 10 by Microsoft's Michael Niehaus. He is responsible for assisting IT Pros with the concept of Windows as a Service, Windows operating system, app deployment and provisioning and was Program Manager for the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.

This 75 minute session covered several new capabilities that Microsoft has provided to enhance the process of deploying Windows 10 in the corporate environment. He also shared some lessons learned after the company has seen the installation of hundreds of millions copies of Windows 10.

Here are some of the key highlights from his session:

- Windows 10 Enterprise Long Term Servicing Branch (LTSB) 2016 media, activation keys, and KMS hotfixes will be released on 01 October 2016.

- Scenarios when an in-place upgrade should not be used when migrating from Windows 7 or 8.1.

- Changes that allow you to perform in-place installs when using 3rd party disk encryption.

- Managing languages when doing an in-place upgrade including system UI language matching on image used for the upgrade.

- Display and Bluetooth drivers are not migrated to the new OS install and other drivers can be provided to setup process through a command line switch.-

- Dynamic Update used to grab latest servicing update to insert it as the upgrade occurs. It does not work well with WSUS and ConfigMgr right now but is being worked.

- New peer to peer distribution of updates is intended to reduce the bandwidth and network impact as new updates arrive and get distributed in your organization. This process can move almost 90% of the network traffic to the edges of your network and keep away from data center and server bottlenecks.

- Work arounds to keep in-box first party apps from installing after a feature update if they were previously removed. Work being done on this to fix this in future updates.

- Settings migration has improved but there are still some circumstances when they do not make the upgrade. If it happens they want to hear from you because that should not be the case.

- Pre upgrade testing tool Compatibility Scan will let you know if a machine/device will likely encounter any issues in an actual upgrade.

- The session also covered things like understanding Windows as a Service (WaaS) and the difference between quality updates and feature updates, Windows Upgrade Analytics and the Ready for Windows 10 compatibility website.

Here is the entire session for your consumption:

Incidentally, Michael will be on-hand delivering sessions for IT/Dev Connections 2016 during the week of October 10th. Here's what he'll be presenting:

And, unlike Microsoft Ignite, IT/Dev Connections attendees will be able to ensure not getting bumped out of a session room because its too full - and will also be able to connect directly with Michael for one-on-one questions.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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Looking for an awesome, no-nonsense technical conference for IT Pros, Devs, and Devops? Check out IT/Dev Connections!