Rollout & Migrations · Case study
Windows 11 Migration and Hardware Refresh Across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
How a Windows 11 migration and laptop refresh across 11 sites in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is scoped and run.
Representative scenario. Last reviewed October 2026.
Engagement profile
- Customer
- Professional services firm with 11 offices
- Scale
- 11 sites, about 600 endpoints
- Service
- Rollout & Migrations
- Where
- GermanyAustriaSwitzerland
Representative scenario. This case study shows how Deploris scopes and delivers this kind of work. It does not describe a real client, and no results are claimed. Want a plan like this for your own sites? Request a quote.
Quick answer
What does this engagement look like?
A multi-site Windows 11 migration and hardware refresh in Germany, Austria and Switzerland means auditing which devices can upgrade, pre-staging replacement laptops with Autopilot, and sending local engineers to each site. Deploris runs it through one engagement manager, pilots at a single site first, then deploys in waves. The customer receives a written plan, tested devices, an updated asset register and a closeout report with photos and test results.
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge.
This is a representative scenario, not a real client. A professional services firm runs eleven offices across five cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with about 600 laptops and desktops that are mostly still on Windows 10. Its internal IT team is small and based in one country. Some of the devices fail the Windows 11 requirements (TPM 2.0, UEFI with Secure Boot, a supported CPU), so the project is a mix of in-place upgrades and hardware replacement, and nobody yet knows the exact split.
The difficulty is less the imaging than the coordination around it. Three countries mean three sets of public holidays and building rules, German-language user communication, and different keyboard and regional settings. Switzerland sits outside the EU customs area, so hardware cannot simply be forwarded from a German warehouse. Employee representatives may need to be informed about new endpoint tooling, and retired drives carry client data that must be wiped or destroyed with proof. One engagement manager has to hold all of this in a single schedule.
Constraints the plan had to respect
- Eligibility is unknown at the start: the existing inventory is partial, and the upgrade versus replace decision drives both the hardware order and the engineer hours.
- Hardware for the Swiss offices crosses a customs border, so delivery dates are less predictable than for the German and Austrian sites, and engineers cannot start until goods are cleared.
- Office buildings restrict goods lift use, deliveries and noisy work to set hours, and weekend access needs approval from building management and, in many cases, the tenant's own facilities team.
- Staff work client-confidential files, so profile migration must stay within the customer's own tenant and retired drives need documented sanitization.
- Users in each country expect German-language instructions and the correct keyboard layout and regional settings on first sign-in.
HOW THE WORK RUNS
How the work is run.
- 1
Estate audit and Windows 11 eligibility triage
The engagement manager starts from the customer's Intune or Configuration Manager inventory and fills the gaps with a short on-site or remote check per device. Each machine is sorted into upgrade in place, replace, or unknown, using TPM version, Secure Boot state, CPU generation, RAM, disk space and firmware age. Unknown devices are treated as replace until checked. The audit also records docks, monitors, local printers, line-of-business apps and anything that needs a driver or licence check.
- 2
Written scope, site calendar and local access plan
Before any work starts, Deploris issues a written scope: device counts per site, the wave plan, engineer allocation and the dependencies each site owns. The calendar accounts for public holidays that differ by state and canton (for example, Bavaria and Hesse do not share all holidays), daily rest periods of eleven hours between engineer shifts, and Sunday work restrictions in the three countries. Per site, the plan lists building management contacts, goods lift and loading dock bookings, parking for engineers, and who signs for deliveries. The customer takes the works council and data protection officer conversations, with Deploris supplying a plain description of what the tooling does and what it records.
- 3
Staging and configuration build
Replacement laptops are registered in Windows Autopilot by hardware hash, or pre-provisioned, with Entra ID join, BitLocker with recovery keys escrowed to the tenant, Windows LAPS, the application set packaged for Intune, and update rings set. Separate profiles carry German (Germany), German (Austria) and German (Switzerland) regional and keyboard settings. Swiss devices are staged in Switzerland so customs clearance happens once, before engineers are booked. Each device is labeled with an asset tag, serial numbers are scanned into a staging sheet, and a sample is tested end to end before the batch is released.
- 4
Pilot site and runbook revision
The pilot runs at one site chosen for variety, not convenience: it should include a mix of laptops and desktops, a conference room, a dock setup and at least one awkward legacy application. Local engineers follow the draft runbook step by step while the engagement manager notes every deviation. User acceptance testing covers sign-in, VPN or ZTNA access, printing, shared drive mapping, OneDrive known folder redirection, Teams devices and the line-of-business apps. Findings feed back into the Autopilot profile, the application packages and the runbook before any further site is touched.
- 5
Wave deployment, device retirement and closeout
Sites are deployed in waves, with one engineer team per country and the engagement manager reporting daily on what is done, blocked or deferred. On site, engineers swap or upgrade devices, run profile and file transfer (USMT or OneDrive redirection, depending on the design), complete the acceptance checklist with each user, and take the old machine out under a chain-of-custody record. Retired drives are wiped or destroyed to the customer's chosen standard, such as NIST 800-88 or DIN 66399, with certificates matched to asset tags. Remote hands cover the first weeks after each wave, and priority dispatch covers anything that needs an engineer in covered metros. The engagement closes with a structured report including photos, test results and the updated asset register.
WHAT WAS PRODUCED
What the engagement delivers.
Each item links to a full guide with its scope, process and FAQs.
WHAT THE CUSTOMER ENDS UP WITH
What the customer ends up with.
- 01A written rollout plan the customer's IT lead, facilities contacts and each site manager can read, with every site's access rules, booking requirements and owner named.
- 02A device-by-device eligibility list that records which machines were upgraded in place, which were replaced and why, so future hardware budgets start from facts.
- 03Replacement laptops delivered pre-configured for the user's country, with correct language, keyboard and encryption settings already in place.
- 04A signed acceptance checklist per user and per site, backed by test results and photos, that the customer can attach to its own change records.
- 05An updated asset register with serial numbers, asset tags and sanitization certificates for every retired device, ready for audit or finance review.
WHAT APPLIES TO YOUR PROJECT
Decisions that apply to similar projects.
Settle the upgrade versus replace split before ordering hardware. Treating every unverified device as a replacement until a check says otherwise avoids the expensive case where laptops arrive for machines that could have been upgraded, or fail to arrive for machines that cannot.
Stage devices in the country where they will be used. For the Swiss offices this means customs clearance is a dated milestone the engineers wait on, not a surprise on installation day, and regional settings are tested in the language the user will see.
Choose the pilot site for its variety. A quiet office with identical laptops teaches little, while a site with docks, legacy apps and a meeting room exposes the problems that would otherwise surface across all eleven sites.
WHERE IT APPLIES
Metros in this scenario.
Local engineers in each metro, coordinated by one engagement manager. Open a metro to see local details.
QUESTIONS
Frequently asked questions.
How long does a multi-site Windows 11 migration take?
Can one provider deploy Windows 11 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland?
What happens to the old laptops and the data on them?
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