Berlin before IT disaster: Conversion to Windows 11 is imminent!

Berlin before IT disaster: Conversion to Windows 11 is imminent!

The deadline for the changeover of Berlin administrations to Windows 11 is closer. On October 14, 2025, free support for Windows 10 ends, which is an urgent challenge for the more than 90,000 computers in Berlin administrations. According to current reports, less than 20% of the Senate devices and less than 25% of the district computers were switched to the new operating system by mid -July 2025. These figures illustrate the pace of the change, which will have to be increased quickly in the next few weeks to adhere to the deadline. According to RBB24, the conversion rates vary greatly between the individual districts.

There are already significant differences. While districts such as Treptow-Köpenick are clearly ahead with over 80% conversion ratio, others such as Reinickendorf and Neukölln seem to be after less than 1% or 17% successfully converted devices. By the time of the key date, over 38,000 jobs from Windows 10 to Windows 11 must also be updated in the district offices, which requires a daily changeover rate of over 150 devices to protect the deadline. Reinickendorf is optimistic about mastering this challenge, but sees the deadlines for the update differently than Microsoft, with a different understanding of the deadline until November 11, 2025.

Challenges and criticism

The changeover is a complicated process. It is surprising that despite a standard process for the update on the part of the IT service center (ITDZ) of 128,666 jobs in the Berlin administration, only 954 have so far been updated in the district offices. A switch to Windows 11 for the "BerlinPC" module was already planned at the end of the first quarter of 2025. In the Senate administrations there are currently 90,233 Windows 10 and 3,548 Windows 11 clients. But the planning only began in May 2023, which indicates inadequate preparation. These challenges have already led to expensive additional support costs in the past, since deadlines have been regularly exceeded, such as stefan-ziller.eu.

Criticism of the slow changeover is growing. District mayor Oliver Igel is calling, among other things, for improved financial resources for IT projects in order to make the switch to Windows 11 more efficient. At the same time, the ITDZ is viewed with reservations, especially after incidents such as software failures at citizens' offices and cyber attacks on the capital portal. Martina Klement from the CSU defends the ITDZ and calls for more speed in central IT. When it comes to IT security, attention is also drawn to the increasing number of professional cyber attacks on public institutions, which underlines the urgency of the change. Public authorities in Germany are increasingly facing threats, which is confirmed by the Threat Hunting Report 2023. The protection of sensitive data becomes a central challenge.

The need for stable cyber protection measures is becoming increasingly clear. The introduction of a zero-trust architecture and the use of modern security tools should help avoid unauthorized access. The pressure to bring IT systems up to date could also be influenced by the ongoing discussion about increased cyber security and resilience in public institutions. Nevertheless, it should be noted that no additional financial resources were planned for the changeover from Windows 10 to Windows 11 in the individual plan 25, which also makes the situation more difficult.