Latest thinking

Insights from the sharp end

No trend pieces, no recycled press releases. These are the questions our clients actually ask, answered by the specialists who deliver this work every week.

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The articles

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Still on Windows 10? October 2026 is the expensive deadline

ESU Year 1 ends on 13 October 2026 and Year 2 costs double. Why extended security updates are a year of breathing room, not a strategy.

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Evergreen Windows: the estate that never expires again

24H2 leaves Home and Pro support in October 2026; 25H2 and 26H2 arrive as enablement packages. The version migration project is over. A rhythm replaces it.

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Intune vs Group Policy in 2026: migrate the intent, not the sprawl

Group Policy Analytics gets you part of the way. The real work is understanding what each setting was for: map it, re-engineer it or retire it.

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The Copilot+ question: refreshing hardware in a rising market

AI PC premiums, memory prices climbing and the Windows 10 exit wave still breaking. How to plan a fleet refresh on evidence rather than vendor hype.

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Discovery worth the name: evidence over workshops

Workshops capture what people remember. Real discovery reads the estate itself: every GPO, every application, every setting, read-only and with zero egress.

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The packaging backlog that stalls migrations

Application packaging is the most common critical-path blocker in endpoint migrations. Why backlogs form, what a good pipeline looks like, and why...

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What happens to RADIUS when devices leave Active Directory?

NPS and PEAP-MSCHAPv2 depend on domain computer accounts. Entra-joined devices break 802.1X machine auth. The honest fixes, and why to sequence them first.

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Entra joined vs hybrid joined: what actually blocks the move

Most estates default to hybrid join out of caution, not need. What genuinely still requires line of sight to AD, what only appears to, and how to evidence it.

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Five things we find in every Intune health check

Update rings that miss half the estate, compliance that checks nothing, stuck deployments: the five findings that surface in almost every Intune health check.

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Configuration drift: what actually changes after project handover

Estates leave a migration project pristine and decay quietly. Who changes what after handover, why nobody notices, and what disciplined drift management...

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Why Windows 11 upgrades fail in co-managed estates

Co-management splits update authority between Configuration Manager and Intune. When sliders, rings, WSUS and GPO remnants disagree, Windows 11 upgrades...

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Windows 10 support has ended. Now what?

Windows 10 reached end of support on 14 October 2025. What actually changed, what did not, and how to run the exit if your estate missed the date.

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The ESU decision: buying time honestly

Windows 10 ESU buys security-only updates at $61 a device, doubling each year. Who should pay the toll, who should not, and how to decide honestly.

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Autopilot isn't your deployment strategy

Windows Autopilot is provisioning plumbing, not a deployment strategy. What actually breaks zero-touch projects, and what a real strategy looks like.

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Windows 10: one hundred days from end of support

Windows 10 support ends on 14 October 2025. With around one hundred days left, here is what a realistic migration plan still achieves, and what waiting has...

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Rationalise before you migrate: why the application estate comes first

Windows 10 support ends 14 October 2025. Most estates plan to migrate every application just in case. Usage evidence lets you retire most of them first.

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Embracing Microsoft Intune for modern management

Imaging, on-premises tooling and manual builds no longer fit how organisations work. What modern management replaces them with, and why the move is overdue.

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Group Policy: the good, the bad and the modern

Two decades of GPOs made Windows estates governable, then ungovernable. How to take back control on the way to the cloud.

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The Modern Workplace

The cloud-managed, security-first foundation that lets your organisation keep pace, without trading away the user experience your people depend on.

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