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Microsoft offers admins free Win 10 upgrade lube

New Upgrade Analytics tool offers risk-based driver, app assessments

Microsoft has offered free lubricant to ease the insertion of Windows 10 across PC fleets.

Redmond's preferred wheel-greaser is called the Upgrade Analytics tool will help admins evaluate system readiness for Windows 10 in a bid to ease driver drama and kernel panics.

The ointment provides admins with a panel showing the number of applications deployed across a fleet of Windows boxes, drivers in use, and the readiness of individual machines.

Redmond has good reason for the (strangely tardy) release of Upgrade Analytics; users have until 29 July to grab a copy of the more secure Windows 10 operating system before a new US$170 (£130, A$228) price tag applies.

Only businesses with small head counts have been thus far able to score Windows 10 at no cost, however.

Reg hack Tim Anderson has fleshed out the good, bad, and ugly of Windows 10 for punters not yet on the operating system.

"Many customers are evaluating or piloting Windows 10 in their organisations but before rolling the OS out more broadly, they want to ensure their applications and drivers are ready," Microsoft program manager Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski says.

"Upgrade Analytics is a new service from Microsoft which leverages telemetry in order to provide customers with insights which allow them to quickly evaluate application and driver readiness and mitigate potential problems."

The tool will use a risk-based approach to evaluate application and driver exposure, parsing the critical from the rarely-used.

Pilot upgrades are also possible.

It is hoped the tests will save punters the considerable cost that comes with manual risk evaluations.

Details on how to squeeze the lube out of the tube and rub it into your PCs can be found here. ®

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