14 July 2026 1 min read

Windows 10 End of Support: What It Means for Your Business Now

Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025. Here is what that actually means if your business has not fully moved to Windows 11 yet.

What End of Support Actually Means

Microsoft ended free support for Windows 10 on 14 October 2025. Devices still running it continue to work, but they no longer receive security updates, feature updates, or technical support from Microsoft. Every new vulnerability discovered in Windows 10 from that date onward stays unpatched on any device still running it, unless that device is covered by a paid Extended Security Updates plan.

For a home user, this might mean a slower path to upgrading. For a business, it is a growing security and compliance exposure that gets worse the longer it continues. Attackers actively target unsupported software because they know the vulnerabilities they find will never be fixed.

Why Some Devices Cannot Simply Upgrade

Windows 11 requires hardware many older devices do not have, including a TPM 2.0 security chip, Secure Boot support, and a supported processor generation. Some businesses assume this is purely a software update. In practice, a portion of an ageing device fleet often needs to be replaced rather than upgraded, which changes the size and cost of the project considerably compared to a straightforward in place upgrade.

Extended Security Updates can buy time for devices that genuinely cannot move to Windows 11 yet, but the program is a stopgap rather than a long term answer. It covers critical security patches only, runs for a limited number of years, and the cost increases each year it continues.

The Compliance Angle Businesses Often Miss

Patching operating systems promptly is one of the core controls in the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight framework. An unsupported operating system with no available patches works directly against that control, regardless of how well configured everything else is. Cyber insurance policies are also increasingly specific about running supported, patched systems, and a claim can be complicated by evidence that a breach occurred through a known, unpatched vulnerability in software Microsoft no longer supports.

Where to Start

The first step is a proper audit, not a guess. Knowing exactly how many devices are still on Windows 10, which of those can upgrade in place, and which need replacing turns an intimidating fleet wide project into a manageable, staged rollout. We handle this through our Modern Device Management service, deploying and configuring new devices through Microsoft Intune, alongside our Patch Management service to keep everything current going forward. If your business is still running Windows 10 on any devices, now is the time to plan the move, not after an incident forces the decision.

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