Microsoft will officially end support for its most popular operating system in October 2025. Here’s what you should do with your Windows 10 PCs before that day arrives.
In less than two years, Microsoft will draw the final curtain on Windows 10 after a successful 10-year run.
That news shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The end date is right there on the Microsoft Support document that lists “products retiring or reaching the end of support in 2025.” The schedule is defined by Microsoft’s Modern Lifecycle Policy, which is documented on the Microsoft Lifecycle page: “Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date.”
When a Windows version reaches its end-of-support date, the software keeps working, but the update channel grinds to a halt:
That part in the middle sounds encouraging, doesn’t it? “Customers are encouraged to migrate to the latest version of the product or service.” Unfortunately, that’s not a supported option for customers running Windows 10 on hardware that doesn’t meet the stringent hardware compatibility requirements of Windows 11. If you try to upgrade one of those PCs to Windows 11, you’ll encounter an error message. And Microsoft is adamant that it will not extend the support deadline for Windows 10.
If you’re responsible for one or more Windows 10 PCs that fail Microsoft’s Windows 11 compatibility tests, what should you do? You have five options available.
You could do nothing at all — just continue running your unsupported operating system and hope for the best. That’s a bad idea, one that exposes you to the very real possibility that you’ll fall prey to a security exploit.
