• Microsoft has revealed that Microsoft 365 users will need to upgrade to Windows 11 before 14th October 2025.
• This is the date that the company will stop providing updates for Windows 10.
• As always, business owners can continue to receive support for Windows 10 at a premium.

Later this year Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. The End of Life (EOL) is scheduled for 14th October and this week the Redmond firm revealed that once that date hits, Microsoft 365 will no longer work on Windows 10.

The company revealed this rather important fact in a blog discussing what Windows users need to do to insure their operating system remains up-to-date and functional. With that in mind, Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 for free for a limited time in order to insure that their PC remains up to date.

However, unlike the push to upgrade to Windows 10, Windows 11 has some strict hardware requirements that make it near impossible for the average user to upgrade an older PC to Windows 11, even if it’s running Windows 10.

The stumbling point for many older PCs is the presence of a TPM 2.0 support. While this support can be enabled via software, it still requires a specific hardware configuration which older PCs may not have. This means that for all intents and purposes, owners of older PCs would need to upgrade their PC which is rather costly given the state of the economy.

The hardware requirements for Windows 11 have caused a fair amount of friction in the uptake of the operating system. As of December 2024, Windows 11 only accounts for 34.1 percent of the Windows install base. Windows 10 meanwhile accounts for 62.73 percent of Windows installations. While it is ancient, Windows 7 accounts for 2.4 percent of Windows installations.

While Windows 10 users can continue using their PC after 14th October without issue, they will no longer receive critical security and operating system updates.

This means that if a vulnerability is found by nefarious people or organisations, they could be unsafe. The WannaCry ransomware leveraged a vulnerability in Windows XP that was still being used by millions of organisations to sow havoc. The vulnerability was so severe that Microsoft released a patch for the operating system long after it ended support for the OS.

Business can, as always, purchase extended security updates (ESU) through a special programme. These updates don’t include new features, nonsecurity updates and design change requests.

“General support won’t be provided for Windows versions past the end of support date. Support will be available only to those organizations that purchase ESU for specific situations concerning the security updates. To get technical support, organizations must have an active support plan in place,” Microsoft explains.

Pricing for ESU will only be available closer to October so it may be best to just take the plunge and upgrade your business fleet. If that isn’t an option, head here to find out about ESU keeping mind that eventually you will need to update and upgrade your PCs.

While Windows 11 was billed as an evolution of Windows 10, really the OS has been more of Windows 10 with a bit of extra dressing. A marquee feature – the ability to run Android apps natively on Windows – was delayed constantly until it was eventually canned.

Copilot, Microsoft’s desktop AI companion, was meant to capture the hearts and minds of users but Copilot+ PCs are too expensive and specialised for most users and core features such as Recall look to be in development hell.

Despite leaving us wanting, there isn’t much choice and users have just nine more months left to upgrade to Windows 11.

To do that, head to the Settings menu in Windows, click Privacy and Security and then Select Windows Update. Follow the prompts to download and install Windows 11 and presto, you have a shiney new OS that looks and behaves just like the old one.