Windows 10 Upgrade

The Managed Desktop service has a self-service capability to upgrade your Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 computer to Windows 10.

What and When:

We’ve released documentation and will shortly release a desktop shortcut which enables customers to perform an upgrade to Windows 10.

This allows users to upgrade their computer to Windows 10 at a time of their choice without intervention by someone else, similar to how users can choose to install software packages on their computers.

We will be sending a notice to all Managed Desktop users about this new capability because their desktop will noticeably change with an icon which enables the upgrade and because we believe all customers should get the information about the ability to upgrade.

What you Need to Do:

If you have additional questions, feel free to ask them via help@uw.edu or nebula-discuss@uw.edu.

If you run into an upgrade problem, send an email to help@uw.edu for assistance. If the upgrade problem causes an interruption in your ability to use your desktop, call 221-5000, and let the UW-IT Service Center know that you are experiencing an incident with your Managed Desktop. This will result in a more urgent notification to our service team, and a quicker response.

More Info:

Documentation:

Should I upgrade my computer to Windows 10?

https://itconnect.uw.edu/wares/mws/design/operating-system-support/should-i-upgrade-my-computer-to-windows-10/

Upgrading to Windows 10

https://itconnect.uw.edu/wares/mws/design/operating-system-support/upgrading-to-windows-10/

As noted at the 2^nd link above, customers double-click an icon we’ve placed on their desktop to initiate the upgrade. We advise customers leave plenty of time for the upgrade to happen—the computer won’t be available during the upgrade. Consider starting the upgrade before you leave for the day. You should reboot your computer before starting the upgrade to clear any pending updates, as pending updates could interfere with the upgrade. After the upgrade to Windows 10, the upgrade icon on your desktop will go away—it is only provided to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 computers.

You may have tried upgrading a computer to a prior version of Windows in the past and had a bad experience. That might have left you reluctant to try an upgrade to Windows 10. However, Microsoft completely re-engineered its upgrade process for Windows 10 to make it extremely reliable. If a problem is encountered which prevents the upgrade from cleanly completing, the upgrade can cleanly back out to the original Windows OS without losing anything or introducing any new problems. The reported number of cases where Windows 10 can’t cleanly upgrade is extremely low, to the point that you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who has experienced it. We haven’t heard of any cases where a Windows 10 upgrade was backed out and wasn’t returned to the same state it was in prior to the upgrade.

Please note: Some icons on your desktop or in the task bar may stop working and will need to be recreated after the upgrade.