With Windows 11 now available, the question of how long Microsoft will continue to support Windows 10 has gotten more pressing. Not everyone is a fan of the new version of the OS, and there are certainly reasons you may not not want to upgrade to Windows 11. Now that Internet Explorer is officially gone, you may be wondering when Windows 10 will experience that same fate.
During its announcements of the Windows 11 rollout, Microsoft reiterated that Windows 10 would remain supported until October 14, 2025. The company put it in writing, too, in a blog post that confirms the date. This applies to both Home and Pro versions of Windows 10. This information has been public since the initial launch of Windows 10, documented in Microsoft's product lifecycle pages all along. That date is a little more than 10 years after the initial release of Windows 10, which is the standard lifecycle length for major Windows versions.
The end of Windows 10 has implications for those with PCs that don't support Windows 11, which requires a recent CPU and a TPM security chip, and support for Secure Boot.
What Does End of Lifecycle Mean?
Microsoft's lifecycle documentation explains what will happen when that dread day arrives. "Once a product reaches the end of support, or a service retires," it says, "there will be no new security updates, non-security updates, or assisted support." During the support period, you get security, quality, and feature updates, though at some point you'll lose feature updates.
For Windows 10 and Windows 11, Microsoft has switched from a Fixed Lifecycle Policy to a Modern Lifecycle Policy. The older Fixed policy distinguished between mainstream and extended support, while the Modern policy merely indicates the end of life date.
Part of the deal with the Modern Lifecycle Policy is that the user must keep the version of the product up to date in order to remain in support. Note that each sub-version has its own lifecycle. For example, the current 21H2 version of Windows 10 will only be supported until June 13, 2023, by which date you'll need to be upgraded to the next release to continue receiving support. The rule of thumb here is that current versions of Windows Home and Pro are supported for 18 months. Note also that Windows releases will be annual going forward, rather than twice a year as they previously were. That applies to both Windows 10 and 11.
