(Originally published on LinkedIn)
On the 16th of October, Microsoft released a new tool called Desktop Analytics where we got quoted, which to me is insane but also proves that we are doing the right things right now.
We have committed to follow the Windows 10 Feature Upgrade schedule of two updates per year, which put high demands on out applications and devices to be ready for this. That is where Desktop Analytics comes into play. This tool provides us with insights around all applications present on our computers and we can identify many known issues before they happen.
By adopting this workflow, we can create more dynamic pilot groups to make sure that we cover as many scenarios as possible before deploying the update to all end-users. This will also help us build a bigger trust in the organization around the Windows 10 feature updates.
Having bigger upgrades of Windows two times per year is a tremendous change from how things have been done in the past, where larger upgrades where released every 3-5 years. Now this happens 2 times per year which comes with a lot of new challenges when we have such a large and complex environment with a lot of older applications which were not designed for Windows 10. However, we are seeing most applications to be working, but this also puts a larger responsibility on the application owners to keep their application up to date and move quick if there is a problem.
We still have things to do around this, but we are getting there and by getting new tools with access to better data will help us take better decisions going forward.
If you haven’t yet read the blogpost from Brad Anderson, you can find it here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/10/16/announcing-general-availability-desktop-analytics/
