14 DAY TRIAL // Pentagon’s transition to Windows 10 is advancing nicely and is on track to complete in the coming months, despite the March 31 deadline for all units.
An en-masse transition to Windows 10 was announced in November 2015, but the complex nature of the process forced the Army to agree with a delay from the original January 2017 target to March 31, 2018.
And while the upgrade has already been completed in the case of some units, others need more time to do it given that hardware and software compatibility problems need to be addressed. Systems that are running unclassified and top secret information are also included in the upgrade, and so are machines used for tactical and strategic missions.
“Windows 10 is not compatible with many systems currently in the Air Force inventory, resulting in the need to replace a significant number of computer hardware,” the Air Force has been quoted as saying by Stripes.
New system purchases
In order to deal with these upgrade challenges and perform the migration as fast as possible, some departments purchase new computers running Windows 10 from the get-go. The Air Force, for instance, has bought a total of 500,000 systems in the past two years, according to the cited source.
The Department of the Navy says it needs more time to upgrade to Windows 10, and the new target is now June, though it’s not clear if the transition would also involve purchasing new systems. What has been described as an aggressive combination of computer replacements, software upgrades, and automatic updates would be responsible for Windows 10 deployment across the unit, Rear Adm. Danelle Barrett, director of Navy cybersecurity for the office of the chief of naval operations, has been quoted as saying.
Windows 10 is considered the most secure Windows version to date, and this is one of the reasons the Pentagon is embracing the operating system, as it can further protect their computers as compared to the previous releases.