// WINDOWS 11 FOR BUSINESS
What it costs to upgrade an office to Windows 11
Windows 10 stopped receiving security updates in October 2025, and every office that has not moved yet is now working out what moving costs. The honest answer is that it is not one bill but three, and the size of each depends entirely on what is sitting on the desks. Some of your machines will upgrade for nothing but an hour of someone’s time. Some cannot run Windows 11 at all and have to be replaced. And the third bill — the one nobody budgets for — is the software and the printers that turn out to depend on the old machines. Here is how to count each one before you commit to any of them. Rated 4.9 on Google.
- ● Quoted per machine
- ● Rated 4.9 on Google
- ● Trading since 1995
/01 — THREE BILLS
Machines that cannot, machines that can, and the day itself
Every quote for an office upgrade is really three separate sums, and it pays to keep them apart, because they are decided by different things and you have different amounts of control over each.
- Machines that cannot run Windows 11. Windows 11 needs a processor from roughly 2018 onwards, a security chip called TPM 2.0, and modern firmware. A PC that lacks any of them will not take the upgrade, whatever you do to it. Microsoft’s own PC Health Check tool tells you in a minute, per machine. These have to be replaced, and this is usually the largest of the three bills.
- Machines that can. For these the upgrade itself is free. What it costs is time: a backup first, an hour or two per machine mostly spent waiting, a check afterwards that everything still works, and someone to do it who will notice when it does not.
- The day itself. Whoever does the work, the office is disrupted while it happens, and something always turns up that nobody knew depended on the old setup. Section 04 is about that, and it is where the surprises live.
Count the first group before anything else. It is the number that turns this from a chore into a purchase.
/02 — THE REPLACEMENTS
What a replacement machine actually costs, and the choice inside it
For the machines that cannot upgrade, the cost is a purchase, and there is a real choice to make about what kind. For office work — email, documents, accounts, the browser — there are broadly three routes.
- Refurbished business-class machines. Ex-corporate Dell desktops and laptops, built for a five-year office life and typically a couple of years into it, with a warranty. On our own refurbished pages these start from £510, and for most desk jobs they are the sensible middle.
- New business-class machines. The same class of hardware, new, with a longer warranty ahead of it. On our hardware page new business Dells start above a thousand pounds. Worth it where the machine will be worked hard or has to last the full five years.
- New consumer laptops. The high-street route, often cheaper on the ticket than a refurbished business machine. They are built to a different standard — plastic hinges, soldered memory, a shorter life under daily office use — and in our experience they cost more over five years than they save on day one.
Whichever route, three things decide whether a machine will last the distance: 16 GB of memory rather than 8, a solid-state drive rather than a spinning one, and a warranty you can actually claim on. A machine bought without those is a machine you will be replacing again.
/03 — THE FREE ONES
What the free upgrade still costs you
For a machine that passes the health check, Microsoft charges nothing for Windows 11. That does not make the upgrade free; it makes the software free. What it still costs is care, and skipping the care is how a free upgrade turns into a lost afternoon.
- A backup first, every time. The upgrade almost always keeps files and programs, and “almost” is the word to plan around. A machine with no backup is a machine you are gambling with.
- The keys and passwords you will need. Drive encryption recovery keys, the licence keys for any software that asks for one on reinstall, the account details for Microsoft 365. Collect them before you start, not when a screen is asking for them.
- Drivers and peripherals. The upgrade takes an hour or two of mostly waiting. The time you notice is afterwards, when the label printer or the scanner or the second screen behaves differently and needs a driver from the maker’s site.
- Someone doing it who knows what “normal” looks like. The person who notices that the accounts package is slower, or that the shared drive is asking for a password it never asked for before, is the difference between a quiet upgrade and a week of small complaints.
Done in sequence, with the office warned, the free machines are genuinely the easy part. Done on a Friday afternoon with no backup, they are not.
/04 — THE COSTS NOBODY BUDGETS
The software and the printers that were secretly holding the office up
The bill that surprises people is never the machines. It is the discovery, on the day, of everything that quietly depended on the old ones. Some of these are cheap to fix and some are the real cost of the whole project, and you want to find them before the day, not on it.
- The one old program. The accounts package from a decade ago, the stock system, the label software. Most can be made to run on Windows 11; a few cannot, and those need a plan — a current version, a replacement, or an old machine kept off the network for that one job. We have written the whole diagnosis up separately, and it is worth reading before you count anything else.
- Printers and scanners. Printing usually survives. Scanning to a shared folder often does not, because Windows 11 is stricter about how a scanner is allowed to sign in to a PC. It is fixable, and it is a known, recurring cost of the day.
- The NAS or the shared drive. An older network storage box can vanish from the network after the move, for the same security-tightening reasons. Again fixable; again worth knowing in advance.
- Downtime. A desk without a working computer is a person not working. Staggering the office over several days costs nothing and avoids the whole team stopping at once.
- Buying time instead. Microsoft sells Extended Security Updates for Windows 10 as a paid bridge for businesses that cannot move yet. It is not a fix and it is not forever, but for an office with a genuine reason to wait it is a legitimate line in the budget. We have written up what it involves separately.
/05 — HOW WE COUNT IT
How we would price it for your office, and what happens after
We would rather count than guess, so this is what we actually do. We check every machine in the office — remotely where we can, in person where we cannot — and give you the three lists: which can upgrade, which cannot, and what is attached to each that needs care on the day. Then we quote it per machine, in writing, before anything is touched. Replacements are priced from the refurbished and new options above, with the trade-offs spelled out; the upgrade work and the day itself are quoted as time. You see the whole number before you say yes.
Afterwards is where an upgrade either pays off or does not. A machine that is kept updated, backed up and looked at regularly lasts its five years; one that is left alone starts collecting problems again within months. If you are on one of our support plans — per computer, business from £24.38 a month, no lock-in — we plan the upgrade into your service visits and the looking-after is already covered. If you are not, it is a one-off job, quoted the same way, and the offer of a plan is there afterwards without any pressure to take it. Either way, the call is free and the counting is the useful part.
FAMILY-RUN SINCE 1995 · ★ 4.9 ON GOOGLE · 200+ COMPUTERS UNDER OUR CARE · NO FIX, NO FEE · SAME-DAY REMOTE SUPPORT
// GOOD QUESTIONS
Frequently asked
Do we actually have to upgrade to Windows 11?
Windows 10 stopped receiving security updates in October 2025, so a Windows 10 office is now running without protection against anything discovered since. For a business that handles customer data, that is a real risk rather than a theoretical one. Microsoft sells paid Extended Security Updates as a bridge for offices that genuinely cannot move yet, but it is a bridge, not a destination.
Is the Windows 11 upgrade itself free?
Yes, for any machine that meets the requirements — a processor from roughly 2018 onwards, a TPM 2.0 security chip and modern firmware. Microsoft charges nothing for the software. What it costs is the time to back up, upgrade and check each machine, and whatever turns out to need attention afterwards.
Refurbished or new for the machines that cannot upgrade?
For ordinary office work, a refurbished business-class machine — from £510 on our own pages — is usually the sensible middle: built for a five-year office life, a couple of years into it, with a warranty. New business-class hardware makes sense where a machine will be worked hard or must last the full five years. The high-street consumer laptop is the route we would steer an office away from, whatever the ticket price.
How much does the office lose while it happens?
Per machine, an hour or two of mostly waiting for the ones that upgrade, and a swap for the ones that are replaced. The cost is in stopping everyone at once, which there is no reason to do: staggered over a few days, with the office warned and a backup taken first, most people lose a coffee break.
What is the cost people most often forget?
The one old program. An accounts package or a stock system that has run for a decade may not open on Windows 11, and finding that out on the day is what turns a planned upgrade into an emergency. Find it first: we have a separate guide to what can be made to run, what cannot, and what to do about each.
Want the three bills counted for your office?
We check every machine, tell you which can upgrade and which cannot, and quote the rest per computer before anything happens — across Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset. Call 01202 775566.
01202 775566 · help@365techies.co.uk · MON–FRI 9AM–5PM