Windows 10 End of Life – 14th October 2025 – Let’s Plan for it.
Welcome to 2024 and January’s IT update from Integer IT.
The widely deployed and much-loved Microsoft Operating System Windows 10 Professional and Home is going end of supportable life 14th October 2025. It was originally launched in July 2015 and follows the 10-year lifecycle pattern of all Microsoft products. The first 5 years it was continually developed and maintained followed by a further 5 years of what is classified as extended support for security updates and patching. The last and final update was its Version 22H2 release in October 2022.
From a business perspective most IT estates have deployed Windows 10 as it has been a robust operating system since its inception and getting familiar with Windows 11 has been a bit of a challenge, for me personally speaking.
More importantly we must plan for its demise as without weekly Microsoft security updates (which we automate for our managed clients) all devices in service come the deadline day will represent a security vulnerability on the network.
The good news is that if you own a PC with Windows 10, that meets the technical parameters of Windows 11, we can upgrade the device without incurring the cost of a new Windows 11 Pro licence. The key phrase here is the wording, technical parameters.
As Microsoft have ended support of Windows 7, then 8.1 operating systems over the last few years we have already upgraded some older devices to Windows 10. These will not meet the criteria of Windows 11 and new hardware will need to be budgeted for.
Integer IT will manage our clients through this transition within our hardware lifecycle reporting as we can quickly determine which devices are Windows 11 ready and can be upgraded as well as reporting on those devices which will not meet the technical criteria.
Our advice is to plan now from a budgetary perspective with a replacement policy for aged equipment over the next 18mths rather than leave it to the last minute.
The not so good news is that Canalys Research has estimated that the electronic waste from 240 million non-compatible PCs could weigh an estimated 480 million kilograms, equivalent to 320,000 cars. Alas, Microsoft are not tasked with dealing with the hefty environmental toll that is expected or tackling the recycling of old equipment.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Microsoft Office 2016 and 2019 suite of products also goes end of life on the same day, 14th October 2025, this will impact those users who use this as the underlying Office applications with Microsoft O365 mailboxes.
If you would like assistance in planning for the future without Windows 10 to avoid security concerns, please let us know as we will be happy to help.
