r/TechnologyProTips

Hello, I work in the IT department of a company and I’ve been tasked with migrating around 100 computers from Windows 10 to Linux for security reasons. We have a little over a month to complete the migration, and any computers still running Windows 10 after the deadline will no longer be allowed to access the company network.

The problem is that the process my team and I are currently using is extremely time-consuming:

1. We take the employee’s computer
2. Back up all of their files
3. Format the machine and install Linux Mint
4. Restore the user’s files

Most of these PCs are old and low-spec, and many of the hard drives are very slow or unreliable. Because of that, the backup process alone can sometimes take an entire afternoon or even a full day. That’s without counting unexpected issues that come up while working on the machines, which slows everything down even more.

Is there a faster or more scalable way to handle this kind of migration instead of manually doing everything one computer at a time? Any advice, tools, or workflow suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate all the suggestions — they gave me a much better idea of how to deal with this situation, and I’ll definitely make good use of the advice and tools you shared. Unfortunately, SSDs are still out of reach for us right now because getting new hardware approved involves a ton of bureaucracy, but I’ll definitely push for some kind of cloud system where users can back up their own files.

i'll start

ctrl + shift + t in any browser reopens the last closed tab. most people either don't know this or forget it exists and spend 30 seconds digging through history every single time

also windows + v instead of ctrl + v opens clipboard history on windows 11. you can paste anything you copied in the last few hours not just the last thing. genuinely changed how i work and i only found out about it by accident

and on iphone if you hold down the spacebar it turns the keyboard into a trackpad so you can move your cursor precisely instead of trying to tap between letters like an animal

none of these are new but i've shown all three to people who use computers every single day and gotten genuine shock reactions every time

what are the ones you use constantly that feel like a secret