In its recent public filing, Microsoft says there are about 1.4 billion Windows PCs worldwide. If three-quarters of them are still running Windows 10, that’s about a billion or so PCs, all running an operating system that expires in two years. SOPA Image / Getty Images
Windows 10 is about to expire.
Just over two years from now, Microsoft’s most successful operating system release ever will reach its end of support date. Alike Monty Python’s Norwegian Blue, it will push the button up. It will leave its mortal coil, run down the curtain and join the unseen choir!
Also: When will Microsoft end support for your version of Windows or Office?
How is this even possible? It seemed like just yesterday, but in fact, Windows 10 was officially released to the public 8 years ago, in July 2015. Following in the footsteps of the ill-fated Windows 8, it has become a success. superior to consumers and business customers alike.
That’s good news, isn’t it? Not exactly exactly.
Microsoft has a big challenge over the next two years: convincing its massive installed base to leave their beloved Windows 10 behind and move on to its successor, Windows 11.
As the clock ticked to that end date, I know many of you had questions, so I looked into it more.
Like every version of Windows in the modern era, Windows 10 adheres to a 10-year support lifecycle. That means most versions of Windows 10 — Home, Pro, Pro Workstation, Enterprise, and Education — will reach the end of support on October 14, 2025. (For details on how calculate that date, let’s see “When will Microsoft end support for your version of Windows or Office?”)
So what happens when that day comes? Nothing. Seriously, absolutely nothing happened that day. Windows 10 PCs continue to function as they always have, and they will stay that way indefinitely. However, from that date onwards, those PCs will no longer receive security updates. Any security flaws found from that date on will remain unpatched, leaving those PCs increasingly vulnerable to online attacks.
Also: Is Microsoft blocking Windows 11 updates for unsupported hardware?
There is at least one exception to this cut-off date, which applies to PCs running Windows 10 Enterprise Long Term Service editions. In total, Microsoft released four of these versions. The 2015 Long Term Services Branch (LTSB) ended support on October 14, 2025, along with the versions described earlier. The 2016 release of LTSB ended support a year later, on October 13, 2026. Beginning in 2019, the name changed to Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC). For Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019, the end date is January 9, 2029. Confusingly, Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 only has a 5-year support life, meaning it will end support on January 12. year 2027.
If someone tells you they know the answer to this question, maybe stop listening to them?
Microsoft can make a firm estimate based on its telemetry, but the rest of us are forced to guess based on discrete third-party metrics.
Also: How to Screen Record in Windows 10 or Windows 11
One of the sources I’ve relied on for years is the US Government’s Digital Analytics Program (DAP), which has a well-organized repository of information about traffic to major websites. information from agencies such as the Postal Service, the National Weather Service, the IRS, and NASA.
When I visited DAP last week, I had no trouble downloading data for the past 90 days, summarizing more than 1.6 billion visits to those sites from Windows PC users from around the world. places in the world. Here’s what the data told me:
See what’s missing from this table? DAP/ZDNET
Notice anything missing from that table? Well, there’s no mention of Windows 11, which seems a bit odd given that Microsoft’s OEM partners have sold hundreds of millions of PCs running Microsoft’s latest operating system over the past two years. Problem? Windows self-reports to analytics programs using the same identifier string as Windows 10. That means for most web analytics measurements, Windows 10 and Windows 11 are the same operating system. onion.
For those who run official US Government websites, this question is mostly academic. It’s probably enough to know that a sizable percentage of visitors are using Windows PCs and only a very small fraction of them are using older versions.
Also: Windows 10 is a security disaster waiting to happen. How will Microsoft clean up its mess?
But for those concerned with the security of the Internet in general, the thought that a very large number of devices will soon run an unsupported and increasingly insecure operating system is… well, let’s go. it is scary.
Another widely used web traffic metric, StatCounter, claims that it can accurately classify traffic from PCs running Windows 10 and Windows 11. Here’s their graph of traffic. access the website web traffic from Windows PC in their network in the past year.
The purple line at the top of the chart is Windows 10 and the blue line far below is Windows 11. Now, I have a problem with the metrics of StatCounter, a theme. I’m not afraid to discuss over the years. But I think the broad strokes of this data are probably correct. The current installed Windows PC base includes about three times as many PCs running Windows 10 as its successor.
In its recent public filing, Microsoft says there are about 1.4 billion Windows PCs worldwide. If three-quarters of them are still running Windows 10, that’s about a billion or so PCs, all running an operating system that expires in two years.
That’s the real question, isn’t it?
After two years of super-fast growth caused by the pandemic, the PC market is finally starting to slow down, but it is likely that more than 200 million new Windows PCs will be sold each year in the near future. The most optimistic scenario is that each one of those new PCs will replace a later discontinued Windows 10 device, with another 100 million PCs replaced by Chromebooks, iPads, and Macs. It is possible that some older PCs were simply discarded and not replaced instead, as consumers decide to use their phone or tablet.
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That best-case scenario still leaves hundreds of millions of people still running Windows 10 as the end of support date in October 2025 approaches. Who owns those PCs?
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Those who cannot upgrade. Some people own older hardware that doesn’t meet the minimum hardware compatibility standards for Windows 11. It basically means any PC designed in 2018 or earlier. Note that this category includes many low-cost PCs that use older designs and unsupported CPUs but were sold as new in 2019 and 2020.
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Business PCs are standardized on Windows 10. A large number of enterprise IT managers have just completed their Windows 10 migration in the last year or two and may not want to do it again.
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Windows 10 extreme. From reading support forums, I know that there are a large number of longtime Windows users unhappy about the changes in Windows 11. Some of them will be reluctant to upgrade, but others will not. Are not.
It’s certainly possible, and there’s precedent in the Windows XP experience, which ended support in April 2014, more than 12 years after it was first released. Windows XP users even receive emergency security updates after that official end date, to address the issue. WannaCry Vulnerability in 2017 and a similar vulnerability in 2019.
Likewise, Windows 7 organizations received a option to pay for Extended Security Updates for three years after officially ending support in January 2020.
Of course, in both of those cases, customers running an obsolete version of Windows have the option to upgrade to the new version. Indeed, that is the recommendation from Microsoft Official Product Support End page:
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After a product ends support or a service stops working, there will be no new security updates, updates that are not related to security, or supported support. Customers are encouraged to migrate to the latest version of the product or service.
However, for Windows 10, that workaround may not be available. Devices that do not meet hardware compatibility requirements will not have a Microsoft-supported migration path to a newer version. As I pointed out last time i looked at this issueowners of those perfectly functioning PCs, some as young as five or six years old, will have the following options instead:
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Install a non-Microsoft operating system. Maybe 2026 will be the year that desktop Linux finally takes the throne, although that is unlikely. ChromeOS Flex might be another option, but it has its own way hardware compatibility requirements that may make it unsuitable for older hardware.
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Ignore Microsoft warnings and upgrade to Windows 11. There are options to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, but they require a fair amount of technical experience. People who cling to old PCs because they can’t afford a new PC may not have those specialized skills. and I suspect that many businesses would be willing to risk the support issues that come with that approach.
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Keep running Windows 10 and hope for the best. History shows that this is the most viable option.
Microsoft and its OEM partners want the owners of those devices to throw them in the landfill and buy a new PC running Windows 11. But my experience with PC owners, especially older ones, has fixed income, is that they will use those devices until they stop working. Those PCs would be prime prey for a cyber attack like Want to cryhad terrible effect on the large number of Windows 7 PCs still in use three years after end of support.
Also: Microsoft users to Windows 10: No more feature updates for you
That incident was a PR nightmare for Microsoft, and a repeat would wreak even more havoc on the company’s reputation. That’s why I doubt Microsoft will extend support to Windows 10 for at least a year or two, especially for enterprise customers.
Given the fundamental similarities between Windows 10 and Windows 11, perhaps this wouldn’t be a technical burden, and the cost of doing nothing would simply be too high.
