Five months later, a lot of businesses are still running it.

We’re not going to tell you that’s automatically catastrophic. But we are going to tell you what we actually tell our clients — which is a more nuanced conversation than most of what you’ll read about this.

What “end of life” actually means

When Microsoft stops supporting an operating system, it stops patching security vulnerabilities. New ones get discovered all the time, and attackers find out about them just as fast as anyone else. The difference is that on a supported OS, there’s a fix coming. On Windows 10 right now, there isn’t.

That doesn’t mean your computers will immediately get hacked. It means the risk profile is different, and it will keep getting worse over time as more unpatched vulnerabilities pile up.

Where things actually stand with our clients

Georgy Johnson on our team has been tracking this closely. “Right now we’re down to 3 clients and a total of 16 computers still on Windows 10,” he says. “Most of those computers are still getting updates because we applied the Extended Security Updates — ESU — so they are protected.”

The ESU program is worth knowing about if you’re in a position where upgrading right now genuinely isn’t possible. Microsoft offers paid extended security updates that keep the patches flowing for a limited period while you plan and execute a proper migration. It is not a permanent fix — but it buys time without leaving machines completely exposed. If you have a managed IT provider, they should already know whether this applies to your situation.

Why most businesses haven’t upgraded yet

We talk to a lot of businesses across the Lower Mainland who are still on Windows 10, and the reason is almost never cost or complexity. It’s that they don’t fully believe the risk applies to them.

And honestly, that’s understandable. If you’ve never been through a ransomware incident, it’s genuinely hard to feel the weight of one. You can read statistics but they tend to bounce off. The mental math of “this probably won’t happen to me” feels more real than the math of “if it does happen, here’s what it costs.”

The businesses we see take security seriously are almost always ones that have been through something. A colleague got hit. Their own files got encrypted once. They lost a week of work to a breach. That kind of experience changes how you think about risk in a way that statistics don’t. So when we’re having this conversation with a skeptical prospect, we try to make it concrete rather than just citing numbers.

Georgy put it plainly: “I have not seen a security incident occur because a client was still on Windows 10 — but only time will tell.” That is the honest answer. The risk is real and it grows over time, but it hasn’t bitten every business yet. The question is whether you want to wait until it does.

The honest advice: it depends on your risk tolerance

Here’s what we actually tell businesses who are still on Windows 10.

What would it cost your business if your computers were inaccessible for three days? A week? What if your files were encrypted and you had to decide whether to pay a ransom or rebuild from backup? Add up the realistic number. Then compare it to the cost of upgrading. That’s not rhetorical — it’s a real calculation, and it’s different for every business.

If you’d lose serious revenue from a few days of downtime, the answer is pretty clear. Upgrade now.

If you think your business could absorb it — or if the timing genuinely doesn’t work right now — there are ways to reduce your exposure in the meantime. A robust firewall, a decent third-party antivirus solution, and regular security awareness training for your team can meaningfully lower the chances that a vulnerability gets exploited. None of that makes Windows 10 safe. But it’s better than nothing while you plan. And if ESU applies to your situation, that’s worth exploring too.

What the upgrade actually looks like

The assumption most businesses have is that it’s going to be painful and disruptive. It doesn’t have to be.

We’ve been doing Windows migrations for 15-20 years across our clients here in the Lower Mainland, through every major version release. When it’s planned properly, it’s smooth. For businesses that need high uptime, we can migrate machines over a weekend or overnight. For most, a tiered approach works well — a few computers at a time, working through the fleet over a few weeks without disrupting day-to-day operations. Every client we’ve taken through this has said the process was painless.

The thing that makes upgrades complicated is when they’re reactive. Waiting until something goes wrong and then urgently migrating 20 computers while also dealing with an incident is a genuinely bad situation. Doing it on your schedule, with some lead time, is a completely different experience.

A note on managed IT relationships

For businesses with a managed IT provider, transitions like this should be largely a non-event. Keeping clients ahead of end-of-life deadlines is a core part of what a managed IT relationship is supposed to do. Most of our clients are already on Windows 11 or have a migration scheduled.

If you’re a managed IT client somewhere and your provider hasn’t brought this up, it’s worth asking why.

The short version: running Windows 10 isn’t automatically a crisis, but the risk grows over time and the upgrade is easier than most businesses expect. If you’d like to know which of your machines are still on Windows 10, whether they can run Windows 11, and what a realistic migration looks like for your business, we’re happy to take a look.

The post Windows 10 End of Life: What BC Businesses Should Do Now appeared first on Raxxos Technology Inc..

If you’ve ever tried comparing MSPs in Vancouver, you’ve probably noticed they all sound the same. Everyone promises fast response times, 24/7 support, great service, strong security.

From the outside, it feels impossible to tell the difference.

But inside the industry, there are a handful of things that separate a true MSP from someone who’s just trying to look like one. These are the little gotchas that people usually only learn the hard way.

Let’s break them down so you don’t have to.

1. Response Times: The Most Misleading Number in the Industry

You’ve probably seen MSPs brag about a “3-minute response time” or something close.

Sounds incredible. And technically, it might even be true. But here’s the part no one explains.

What does “response” even mean?

Some MSPs count the tiniest action as a “response,” like:

• an automated email
• a ticket confirmation
• a quick “got it, thanks”
• a bot pinging you back

Technically, they responded.
But nothing is fixed. Nothing is moving.

The number that actually matters

If you want a clear picture of how an MSP performs, ask for two numbers together:

• Average response time
• Average resolution time

Response is just “we heard you.”
Resolution is “problem solved.”

If someone tells you they respond in under five minutes but won’t share resolution time, that’s a yellow flag. When you look at both stats side-by-side, you see how the operation really runs.

At Raxxos, we tell clients straight up—response times mean nothing without resolution to back them up.

2. 24/7 Support: Everyone Claims It, But It Means Three Different Things

“24/7 support” is one of the most abused marketing claims in the MSP world.

From a business owner’s perspective, it sounds great.
From inside the industry, it can mean three completely different things.

Option 1: The owner sleeps with his phone on

Seriously. This happens more often than you think.
The MSP is basically one guy who promises “after-hours support” by keeping his phone on his nightstand.

It’s well-intentioned, but it’s also chaotic and unreliable.

Option 2: Outsourced overseas call center

This is super common.

When you call after hours, you get routed to a team in another country that doesn’t know your systems, doesn’t know your network, and can’t actually roll someone on-site.

They mostly log the ticket for the local team to look at in the morning.

The quality varies a lot here – some are just glorified call-centers, others are more integrated into the MSP and can perform remote system administration tasks to fix problems. The big thing is that you clarify with the MSP, what they actually mean by 24/7, who’s working after-hours, and what are their real capabilities.

Option 3: A real local team working in shifts

Very few MSPs actually do this because it’s super expensive.

But this is the only true definition of 24/7 support.

Do you even need 24/7?

A lot of businesses think they do, but actually don’t.

If your team runs 9-5, Monday to Friday, paying for genuine around-the-clock support usually doesn’t make sense.

At Raxxos, we always ask clients what their actual operating hours are. There’s no point in selling something you don’t need. And, most MSPs today even if they are not truly 24/7, they have software and automations that do run 24/7, which is a heck of a lot better than having nothing!

3. Team Size: The Difference Between a Real MSP and a One-Person Show

Team size is another area where the details get fuzzy.

The solo-operator problem

Some IT consultants operate alone, which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with being a one-person shop.

The problem is when a solo operator presents themselves like a full MSP.

If they get sick, take a vacation, or get slammed by a big emergency, everything slows down. Things fall through the cracks. Phones go unanswered.

This creates expectations they simply can’t meet.

On the flip side, big doesn’t automatically mean better

The right size depends on your business. Some small companies do great with a solo consultant. Others genuinely need a team of specialists working around the clock.

At Raxxos, we’re transparent about our team because it sets the right expectations from day one.

4. Do They Have a Real Office… or Just a Mailing Address?

Not every MSP needs a massive office. Many helpdesk technicians are now working from home and MSPs are more distributed than ever!

But having a real, secure physical space still matters more than most people think.

Why a real office matters

A proper MSP needs space to:

• store equipment
• stage and image laptops
• receive hardware shipments
• work on repairs

If everything’s being done out of someone’s spare bedroom, you’re taking on risks you can’t see.

Raxxos didn’t start in an office either

In the early days, we had pallets of laptops show up in the driveway. If rain was coming, we’d have to time it right so we were outside during delivery so we could break down the pallet and rush everything inside as quick as possible.

It worked, but it definitely wasn’t ideal!

Now imagine ordering 100 laptops through your MSP.

Do you want those delivered to someone’s home driveway… or a properly secured business location?

5. Insurance: The Most Overlooked (and Most Important) Question

This one hardly ever comes up in MSP shopping, but it matters massively.

You should ALWAYS ask:

• Do you carry business liability insurance?
• How much?
• Do you carry cyber insurance?
• Does your cyber policy extend to client incidents?
• Do you have E&O (Errors & Omissions) coverage?

If something goes wrong – data loss, breach, downtime, anything… you want to know the MSP can survive the hit and keep supporting you.

The simple way to verify an MSP is actually legitimate

Anybody can claim to be an MSP – it’s not a protected industry, unlike things like lawyers, doctors, and CPAs. You don’t need a special license or be board-approved to be an MSP. That’s why it’s so important to ask these questions.

That’s also why MSPAlliance created the MSP Verify certification. It’s the only independent third-party audit designed specifically for MSPs.

If someone has gone through that process, you can trust they’re operationally sound and properly insured.

Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need to Be an IT Expert to Pick the Right MSP

You don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to ask the right questions! It’s about knowing which questions reveal how the MSP really operates.

Here’s the quick checklist:

• Ask for response and resolution times
• Ask what 24/7 support actually means
• Check team size and structure
• Confirm they have a real, secured office
• Verify insurance and cyber coverage
• Look for third-party audits like MSP Verify

If you want help comparing MSPs or want a straight, pressure-free opinion on what your business actually needs, reach out to us at Raxxos Technology Inc.

We’re a friendly bunch, and we’ve been doing this across Vancouver and the Lower Mainland for 15+ years.

The post How to Choose a Managed IT Provider in Vancouver (Without Getting Burned) appeared first on Raxxos Technology Inc..

That’s not really how it works.

Let me show you what’s actually happening behind the scenes at Raxxos when you’re home sleeping and we’re watching over your business technology from our office in Cloverdale, Surrey.

What Monitoring Actually Means

Think of it like a really smart security system for your technology. Except instead of watching for burglars, we’re watching for signs that your computers, servers, and network might be getting sick.

Your computer is constantly creating data about how it’s performing. How much memory it’s using, how hot the processor is getting, whether the hard drive is responding normally.

We capture all that data and feed it into monitoring software that knows what normal looks like for your specific setup.

When something starts looking abnormal, the system alerts us immediately. And I mean immediately – usually within minutes of a problem starting.

A Real Example From Last Week in Surrey, BC

Last Saturday at 2:47 AM, our monitoring system detected that one of our Surrey, BC client’s servers was running low on disk space. Not completely full, just getting close.

Most businesses wouldn’t notice this until the following Monday when employees started getting error messages trying to save files. By then, people would be frustrated and potentially losing work.

Instead, our technician got an alert on his phone. He remotely connected to the server from his location, cleaned up some old log files, and scheduled a proper disk cleanup.

The business owner never knew anything happened. His employees came to work Monday morning and everything worked perfectly.

The Types of Things We Watch For

Our monitoring systems track hundreds of different metrics, but here are the big ones that actually matter for your business…

Server Health

• Is the server responding to requests normally?
• Are all the important services running?
• Is memory usage climbing toward dangerous levels?
• Are there any failed login attempts that might indicate someone trying to break in?

Network Performance

• Is internet speed what it should be?
• Are there any devices on the network that shouldn’t be there?
• Is the firewall blocking suspicious traffic?
• Are backups completing successfully every night?

Individual Computer Issues

• Hard drives showing early signs of failure
• Software that’s stopped responding but hasn’t crashed yet
• Security updates that failed to install
• Antivirus software that’s stopped working

The Stuff That Breaks Gradually

This is where monitoring really shines. Most technology problems don’t happen suddenly – they develop slowly over weeks or months.

Your server might start taking 5% longer to respond to requests. Then 10% longer. Then 15%. By the time you notice it’s slow, it’s been degrading for months.

Our monitoring catches that 5% slowdown and alerts us to investigate. Maybe the hard drive is starting to fail. Maybe there’s a memory leak in some software. Maybe the server just needs more RAM because your business has grown.

What Happens When We Get An Alert

Let’s say it’s 3 AM and our monitoring system detects that your email server isn’t responding properly.

The alert goes to our on-call technician’s phone. They get detailed alert that tells them exactly what’s wrong and how urgent it is.

They can usually tell immediately if this is something that needs to be fixed right now or if it can wait until morning. A completely down email server gets fixed immediately. A server that’s running a little slower than normal might get investigated first thing in the morning.

If it needs immediate attention, they connect remotely and start troubleshooting. They have access to all the diagnostic tools and can usually fix the problem without ever coming to your office.

This is different from basic IT support where you have to call and wait for someone to get back to you. Our Langley & Surrey tech support team can address issues immediately, often fixing problems before they affect your business operations.

Most of the time, your email is working normally by the time you check it at 7 AM. You never knew there was a problem.

The Difference Between Monitoring and Checking

Some IT companies will tell you they “monitor” your systems, but what they really mean is they check on things once a week or once a month.

Real monitoring through our Langley & Surrey IT support services is continuous. Our systems check your servers every few minutes around the clock. If something goes wrong at 11:47 PM on a Saturday, we know about it by 11:50 PM.

We also keep historical data going back months. So when something does go wrong, we can see exactly when it started and what might have caused it.

Why This Prevents Bigger Problems

Here’s a story that shows why monitoring matters for Langley businesses…

One of our clients runs a small manufacturing business in the Township of Langley. Their main server handles inventory, order processing, and payroll – basically everything important for their growing operation.

Our monitoring started showing that the server’s main hard drive was developing bad sectors. This wasn’t causing any problems yet, but it was a warning sign that the drive might fail soon.

We scheduled a hard drive replacement for the following weekend. Ordered the new drive, backed up everything, and our technician drove over from Cloverdale to swap it out on Saturday morning.

The old drive completely failed two weeks later. If we hadn’t been monitoring and replaced it proactively, that Langley business might have been down at a critical moment.

Of course they had backups, but not all backups recover immediately – it could have been an hour or two to restore it. And honestly, most IT companies don’t check backups often enough. That’s why we even monitor our backups. Our top -ier backup systems actually simulate a backup recovery every single night! But that’s for another article.

What We Don’t Do

We’re not watching your personal stuff or spying on your employees. The monitoring systems only look at technical performance data.

We can see that someone’s computer is using a lot of memory, but we can’t see what websites they’re visiting or what documents they’re working on.

We can see that your email server processed 347 messages yesterday, but we can’t read any of those messages.

The monitoring is focused entirely on keeping your technology healthy and secure, nothing else.

The Tools We Actually Use

Our monitoring software runs in the cloud. These systems connect to small monitoring agents installed on your computers and servers.

The agents are lightweight – they use less resources than a typical web browser. You’ll never notice them running.

They collect performance data and send it back to our monitoring servers every few minutes. If the internet connection goes down, they store the data locally and send it once connectivity is restored.

We use different monitoring tools for different things. Server monitoring, network monitoring, security monitoring, backup monitoring. Each tool is specialized for what it does best.

The Human Side of Monitoring

Even with all this automation, there’s still a human element. Our technicians review the monitoring data regularly to look for trends and patterns.

Maybe your server CPU usage has been gradually increasing over the past six months. The individual daily increases are too small to trigger alerts, but the overall trend suggests you’ll need more processing power soon – especially important for growing Surrey, BC and Langley, BC businesses that are scaling up their operations.

Or maybe we notice that certain types of network errors happen more often on rainy days. That might indicate a physical cable problem that only shows up when moisture gets into something – not uncommon in our Pacific Northwest climate.

This kind of pattern recognition helps us prevent problems before they become emergencies.

What This Means for Your Langley or Surrey Business

The goal of all this monitoring isn’t to impress you with fancy technology. It’s to keep your business running smoothly whether you’re located in Willoughby, Cloverdale, Newton, or anywhere else in the Fraser Valley.

When your employees come to work in the morning, their computers start up quickly. The network is responsive. Email works. The database is available. Everything just works like it’s supposed to.

You don’t get surprise IT emergencies that shut down your business for half a day. You don’t lose important data because a hard drive failed without warning. You don’t have angry customers because your payment processing system went down during the lunch rush.

The Real Value for Local Businesses

Most businesses in Langley, BC and Surrey, BC think about IT support as something you call when things break. But monitoring flips that around – we fix things before they break.

Your employees stay productive because their technology works reliably. You avoid the stress and cost of emergency repairs. You can plan IT upgrades and maintenance during convenient times instead of dealing with crises.

Since we’re located right in Cloverdale on the Surrey & Langley border, we can respond quickly for any on-site work that might be needed. But most of the time, our remote monitoring and repair capabilities mean problems get solved before you even notice them.

When we tell you that Raxxos provides 24/7 monitoring for your business, we mean that your technology is being watched over by professional tools and experienced technicians around the clock.

While you’re sleeping, we’re making sure you’ll have a good day at work tomorrow.

The post 24/7 Monitoring Explained: What Raxxos Does for Your Business While You Sleep appeared first on Raxxos Technology Inc..

Most people have no idea what happens on the other end.

Today I’m going to walk you through exactly what happens at Raxxos when someone calls our Langley & Surrey managed IT services team with a problem.

This is the real process, from start to finish.

The Call For IT Support Comes In

Let’s say Sarah from accounting at a Surrey, BC manufacturing company calls because her computer is running super slow and she can’t open Excel. She’s frustrated because she has a deadline in two hours.

Our phone system at our Cloverdale, Surrey office immediately shows us who’s calling. We can see Sarah’s name, her company, what computer she uses, and her recent ticket history, and even company-wide ticket history, before we even pick up.

This is part of what makes our IT support team so efficient – we already know your setup and history before the conversation starts.

The first thing our technician does is listen.

Sarah might say “my computer is broken” but we need to figure out what’s actually happening. Is it slow to start up? Freezing when she opens certain programs? Blue screen of death?

We ask specific questions that might sound basic but they help us narrow down the problem fast…

• When did this start happening?
• Is it happening with all programs or just Excel?
• Did anything change recently – new software, updates, anything?
• Can you still access your email and internet?

Each answer eliminates whole categories of possible problems.

The Ticket Gets Created

While we’re talking to Sarah, we’re already creating a support ticket in our system. This is how we make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

The ticket includes:

• Exact description of the problem in Sarah’s words
• Her computer specs and network information
• Priority level based on how this affects her work
• Initial troubleshooting steps we want to try

We also check if other people at her company have reported similar issues. Sometimes what looks like one person’s computer problem is actually a server issue affecting everyone.

This systematic approach comes from our founder Kelly’s background working with major Langley and Surrey based dealership groups like Wolfe Auto Group and Trotman Auto Group. In those fast-paced environments, when technology goes down, it’s very expensive.

Every minute counts, so we can’t afford to be random with our approach.

Remote Access and Quick Checks

Most of the time, we can connect to Sarah’s computer in Surrey remotely while she’s still on the phone from our Cloverdale office.

We start with the obvious stuff first. Is her computer actually slow or is it just Excel that’s being weird? We open a few other programs to test.

We check her available memory, see what programs are running in the background, and look for any error messages she might not have noticed.

Most of the time, we find the problem in the first five minutes. Maybe Excel has been running for three weeks straight and just needs to be restarted. Or there’s a Windows update that downloaded but never finished installing.

When It’s Not That Simple

If the quick fixes don’t work, we move to deeper troubleshooting. This is where having access to professional tools makes a huge difference.

We can see her computer’s performance over the past week. Did something change on Tuesday that started causing problems? We can literally see when the performance dropped.

We check the event logs – these are like a diary your computer keeps of everything that happens. Most people don’t know these exist, but they tell us exactly when something went wrong and often why.

Sometimes we need to run diagnostic tools that take a few minutes. We explain what we’re doing so Sarah doesn’t think we just disappeared.

The Fix (Or The Plan)

Let’s say we find that Sarah’s hard drive is starting to fail. The computer isn’t broken yet, but it’s going to be soon.

We have a choice here. We could just restart her computer and tell her it’s fixed. It would work for maybe another week or two.

Instead, we explain what’s happening. Her hard drive is wearing out and needs to be replaced. We can do it over the weekend so she doesn’t lose any work time.

We help her back up her important files right now, just in case. We also set up a temporary fix so she can finish her Excel project today.

Documentation and Follow-Up

After we hang up with Sarah, the work isn’t done.

We update the ticket with exactly what we found and what we did to fix it. If another technician needs to help Sarah next time, they can see the whole history.

We also flag her computer for that hard drive replacement. Our system will automatically remind us to order the part and schedule the work.

If this was a complex problem, we might set a follow-up reminder to check with Sarah in a day or two. Make sure the fix actually worked and she hasn’t had any other issues.

Why This IT Support Process Matters

You might wonder why we don’t just tell everyone to restart their computer and call back if it doesn’t work. Some Langley & Surrey IT support companies do exactly that.

The difference is that our proactive managed IT services approach means we’re trying to solve the actual problem, not just make the symptoms go away for a while.

When Sarah called about her slow computer, we could have just restarted it. The computer would have run better for a few days. But then her hard drive would have failed completely on a random Tuesday, and she would have lost all her work.

What You Can Do To Help

The better information you give us upfront, the faster we can fix your problem.

Don’t just say “my computer is broken.” Tell us exactly what you were doing when it stopped working. Were you opening a file? Printing something? Installing an update?

If you see any error messages, don’t just click “OK” and forget about them. Take a screenshot or write down what it said.

And please don’t restart your computer before calling us unless we ask you to. Sometimes the error messages or symptoms help us figure out what’s wrong.

The Human Side Of Our IT Support

Here’s something most people don’t realize… we actually want to solve your problem as much as you do.

When someone calls frustrated because they can’t get their work done, we feel that pressure too. We’re not just checking boxes or following scripts.

We know that Sarah has a deadline in two hours. We know that when the computer in the reception area stops working, patients start getting upset. We know that when the server goes down at a Langley, BC auto dealership, the whole sales process basically stops.

This understanding comes from our years of providing helpdesk support to businesses throughout Surrey, BC and Langley, BC – we’ve seen how technology problems affect real business operations.

That’s why we ask all those questions and take the time to figure out what’s really wrong. Because a five-minute fix now is better than a five-hour emergency repair next week.

What Happens Next

After Sarah’s call, her ticket stays open until we’ve completely resolved everything. If we need to replace that hard drive, we’ll schedule it and follow up.

We also add what we learned to our knowledge base. If someone else calls with the same symptoms, we’ll be able to fix it even faster next time.

Sometimes we’ll notice patterns too. If three people call about slow computers in one week, maybe there’s a bigger issue we need to investigate.

The goal isn’t just to fix individual problems. It’s to keep your whole technology system running smoothly so you can focus on your actual work.

When you call Raxxos for IT support, you’re not just getting someone to restart your computer. You’re getting a whole process designed to actually solve problems and prevent them from happening again.

That’s what you’re paying for with our Langley & Surrey managed IT services, and that’s what makes the difference between good tech support and just okay tech support.

The post What Actually Happens When You Call Raxxos for IT Support appeared first on Raxxos Technology Inc..