Ministry for Primary Industries completes Windows 8.1 upgrade

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has completed the upgrade of all of its 2740 PC and laptops to Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 8.1.

Acting Deputy Director-General Corporate Services, Tracy Voice, said that moving to Windows 8.1 was an important step for MPI to enable a future ready platform for new tools.

“We’ve been planning the move from XP for more than 18 months. After discussions with Microsoft, we delayed the rollout to ensure we’d roll out the latest version, and reduce the risk of running multiple upgrades,” she said.

“We decided not to purchase the extended support for XP offered by Microsoft from 8th April, as we were on track to complete the upgrade by 20 June and had completed a full risk assessment, which rated the security risk as low.”

Voice said another positive outcome from the migration process was that MPI identified and significantly reduced a number of applications used.

MPI will also roll out Office 2013 later this year, followed by a new electronic content management as a service system (ECMaaS) in 2015. Both are compatible with Windows 8.1.

Jeff Healey, public sector director for Microsoft NZ, commended MPI on completing their move to Windows 8.1.

“Windows 8.1 adds premium features that address the mobility, security, management, and virtualization needs of today’s enterprise,” said Healey.