Starting in April «letters of happiness» from Microsoft will be displayed on unmanaged corporate devices running Windows 10 Pro and Pro Workstation.
«Upgrade to the latest version of Windows 11 for free. You can use your PC without interruption while the update is downloading in the background (about 4 GB)», — will be included in invitations.
Messages will be displayed at sign-in, typically after a system reboot following security updates in April 2024. Users will have the option of upgrading to Windows 11 23H2 immediately or continuing to use Windows 10 (or scheduling the upgrade at a later date).
«If your organization relies on Microsoft to manage Windows updates, you’ll soon see a new user interface on eligible Windows 10 devices,» the company said this week.
The invitations will only appear on corporate PCs that are connected to a cloud domain and a domain that meets the Windows 11 eligibility criteria. Devices that are managed by IT using tools such as Microsoft Intune, Configuration Manager, Windows Autopatch, or other third-party management tools will not receive them.
Support for Windows 10 Pro will end on October 14, 2025. The final version of Windows 10 — 22H2 — will receive monthly security updates until that date. Last week, Microsoft announced that it will force Windows 11 23H2 on systems that have reached or are about to reach the end of their service life.
Windows 11, version 23H2 (also known as the Windows 11 2023 Update) was released on October 31, a month after it became available to devices registered in the Release Preview Insider Channel.
According to the latest Statcounter, almost every fifth user of Microsoft operating systems has switched to Windows 11. The OS share reached 18.1% in 16 months after the release.
Source: Bleeping Computer