Microsoft nonetheless has an enormous Home windows 10 drawback – and there is not any simple approach out

Like each model of Home windows within the fashionable period, Home windows 10 adheres to a 10-year assist lifecycle. Which means most Home windows 10 editions — Residence, Professional, Professional Workstation, Enterprise, and Training — will attain their end-of-support date on Oct. 14, 2025. (For the nerdy particulars on how that date is calculated, see “When will Microsoft end support for your version of Windows or Office?”)

So, what occurs when that day arrives? Nothing. Severely, completely nothing occurs on that date. PCs operating Home windows 10 will proceed to work simply as they at all times have, and they’re going to accomplish that indefinitely.

Additionally: Windows 10 PC can’t be upgraded? You have 5 options and 6 months to take action

From that date ahead, nonetheless, these PCs will not obtain safety fixes by way of Home windows Replace except their homeowners pay Microsoft for an Extended Security Updates (ESU) subscription. On Home windows 10 PCs with out an ESU subscription, any safety flaws discovered from that day ahead will stay unpatched, making these PCs more and more susceptible to on-line assaults.

There may be no less than one exception to this cutoff date, which applies to PCs operating Home windows 10 Enterprise Lengthy Time period Servicing editions. In all, Microsoft has launched 4 of those editions. The 2015 Lengthy Time period Servicing Department (LTSB) ends assist on Oct. 14, 2025, together with the editions described earlier. The 2016 LTSB launch ends assist a yr later, on Oct. 13, 2026. Starting in 2019, the title modified to Lengthy Time period Servicing Channel (LTSC). For Home windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019, the top date is Jan. 9, 2029.

Confusingly, Home windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 has solely a five-year assist lifecycle, which implies it ends assist on Jan. 12, 2027.

If anybody tells you they know the reply to this one, perhaps cease listening to them?

Microsoft can in all probability make a strong estimate primarily based on its telemetry, however the remainder of us are compelled to guess primarily based on fragmentary third-party metrics.

Additionally: There’s a quiet PC boom happening – thanks to Windows 10 and the tariffs

One of many sources I’ve relied on through the years is the US authorities’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which has a well-organized repository of details about site visitors to official web sites run by businesses just like the Postal Service, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Nationwide Climate Service, the IRS, and NASA.

I have been checking that supply frequently over the previous few years. Once I visited DAP at first of April 2025, I retrieved 90 days’ price of information, overlaying billions of visits to these web sites from individuals utilizing Home windows computer systems, Macs, and cell units from all all over the world. Here is what the information instructed me after I filtered it to indicate solely visits from PCs operating Home windows 10 and Home windows 11:

That is the true query, is not it?

Regardless of predictions of the upcoming demise of the PC market, OEMs proceed to promote greater than 200 million new Home windows computer systems annually. Probably the most optimistic state of affairs is that each a type of new PCs offered within the subsequent yr replaces a Home windows 10 machine that’s then retired, with one other 100 million or so older PCs changed by Chromebooks, iPads, and Macs. Possibly some outdated PCs are merely put out to pasture and never changed in any respect, as customers resolve to make use of their telephones or tablets as an alternative. The prospect of enormous tariffs on PCs manufactured in China and offered within the US complicates the equation significantly.

Additionally: Can’t quit Windows 10? You can pay Microsoft for updates after October, or try these alternatives

If the shift to Home windows 11 continues at its present charge, as measured by the DAP knowledge, roughly 35% of PCs will nonetheless be operating Home windows 10 in October 2025. That provides as much as greater than 500 million PCs that will probably be operating an outdated, unsupported working system on the finish of the yr.

I believe that tempo will speed up considerably, particularly in enterprise deployments which have been planning for this transition for the previous few years and will probably be executing on these plans earlier than the top of 2025. Even at that accelerated tempo, although, it’s going to nonetheless imply a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of PCs will probably be operating Home windows 10 when the end-of-support date rolls round. Yikes.

Who owns these PCs?

• Those that do not qualify for an computerized improve. Some individuals personal older {hardware} that does not meet the minimal {hardware} compatibility requirements for Home windows 11. Mainly, which means any PC that was designed in 2018 or earlier. Notice that this class contains many price range PCs that used older designs and unsupported CPUs however have been offered as new in 2019 and 2020.
• Company PCs which can be standardized on Home windows 10. A nontrivial variety of enterprise IT managers aren’t able to undergo a wholesale Home windows 11 migration. A lot of them will use the traditional improve cycle to carry out that migration over time, they usually have the choice to pay for Home windows 10 upgrades for as much as three years after the end-of-support date.
• Home windows 10 diehards. From my time spent studying assist boards, I do know there’s a big inhabitants of longtime Home windows customers who’re sad concerning the adjustments in Home windows 11. A few of them will reluctantly improve, however others will not.

I do know some persons are satisfied this can be a chance, and there is precedent for it within the expertise of Home windows XP, which ended assist in April 2014, greater than 12 years after it was first launched. Home windows XP customers even obtained emergency safety updates effectively after that official finish date, to handle the WannaCry vulnerability in 2017 and an identical flaw in 2019. Likewise, Microsoft issued emergency security updates for Windows 7 in 2021 after its assist had formally ended.

After all, in each circumstances, the purchasers operating the soon-to-be-obsolete Home windows model had the choice to improve to a brand new model. Certainly, that is the advice from Microsoft’s official Product End of Support page:

As soon as a product reaches the top of assist, or a service retires, there will probably be no new safety updates, non-security updates, or assisted assist. Prospects are inspired emigrate to the most recent model of the services or products.

Additionally: Can you still get a Windows 10 upgrade for free in 2025? Short answer: Maybe

For Home windows 10, although, that different may not be accessible. Gadgets that do not meet the {hardware} compatibility necessities may have no Microsoft-supported migration path to a more recent model. As I identified the last time I looked at this issue, the homeowners of these completely purposeful PCs — some solely 5 – 6 years outdated — will as an alternative have the next choices:

• Set up a non-Microsoft working system. Possibly 2026 would be the yr when desktop Linux finally takes hold, though that is unlikely. ChromeOS Flex is likely to be an alternative choice, nevertheless it has its personal hardware compatibility requirements that in all probability make it unsuitable for older {hardware}.
• Ignore Microsoft’s warnings and improve to Home windows 11 anyway. There are alternatives to install Windows 11 on “incompatible” hardware, however they require a good quantity of technical expertise. People who find themselves clinging to outdated PCs as a result of they can not afford a brand new one possible haven’t got these specialised expertise and will not even understand that the choice is offered. I doubt that many companies can be prepared to threat the assist points that include that strategy.
• Maintain operating Home windows 10 and hope for one of the best. Historical past means that that is the almost definitely choice.

Nothing within the firm’s habits over the previous yr suggests they’ve any plans to increase the assist deadline for Home windows 10.

Microsoft and its OEM companions would like that the homeowners of these units dump them in a landfill and purchase a brand new PC operating Home windows 11. Nevertheless, my expertise with PC homeowners, particularly older individuals on a hard and fast earnings, is that they may use these units till they cease working. These PCs will probably be sitting geese for a cyberattack like WannaCry, which was brutally efficient towards the big inhabitants of Home windows 7 PCs that have been nonetheless in use three years after its assist ended.

That incident was a PR nightmare for Microsoft, and a repeat can be much more devastating to the corporate’s popularity. That is why Microsoft has provided paid choices to increase assist for Home windows 10 by three years. Prospects in enterprise and training deployments are more likely to reap the benefits of these choices.

Shoppers have the choice to pay for updates for a yr. I predict that few will accomplish that. After that? Properly, you are by yourself.