How long will Windows 10 be supported? Hi everyone Leo Notenboom here
for Askleo.com. Let's dive right into the question.
"I wish you'd addressed the issue of Windows 10 support,
we certainly were given the impression it was permanent when we bought."
This was actually in response to my earlier article, did Microsoft
talking about the statement that was made at the time Windows 10 was originally
released, that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows?
Like I said, I discussed that in some depth in this prior article.
But what I want to talk about today is
more about the support issue that this questioner raised.
What did it mean for support?
Things got a little bit confusing, although we've ended up with some clarity.
It's just not necessarily the clarity we were led to expect.
The bottom line with the announcement
of Windows 11 is that Microsoft also announced a true
end of support date for Windows 10, and that is October 2025.
Of course, it could change, but right now that's the line in the sand.
On that day, there will be no further updates to Windows 10.
No more fixes and no more security updates.
That's what it means to reach end of support.
The operating system will continue to work
just like Windows 7 still works, just like Windows XP still works.
But you won't get any more fixes, which is fine.
That's like four years away from from now
as I record this in July of 2021.
So we've got a lot of time with Windows 10, which is one of the reasons that
I'm not that concerned about immediately jumping to Windows 11.
There's a tremendous amount of overlap.
There's a lot of confusion around Windows 11.
But let's get back to support.
When we go back to the concept of Windows 10 forever.
When that announcement was made,
it was at least implied that Windows 10 would be supported forever.
Well, that turned out not to be true.
And honestly, it's not something that we
ever should have really expected to be true.
You can't support an operating system forever.
I mean, think about it.
Windows 10 on the starship's of 100 years
from now just doesn't make sense, especially if they're still supposed
to support the computers of 100 years ago at the time.
So the bottom line is that that was never
realistic, even if it was an implied message and in fact, it got changed.
It did change a couple of years ago
in what I'll call a fairly significant way that kind of slid under the radar.
For a lot of people.
The wording was suddenly changed, that it would be supported.
Windows 10 would be supported forever on supported hardware.
What that basically gave Microsoft an out with was the ability to change
the hardware requirements that at some point your hardware,
whatever the hardware is you have today, might no longer be supported.
But newer versions of Windows 10 and newer hardware would continue to work.
That's a little bit more realistic.
It's still a pretty confusing message and again, not quite the message that was
implied when Windows 10 was released, but at least it makes some sense.
Not all hardware can be supported forever,
regardless of what you call the operating system.
So it is more realistic to realize that,
yeah, the computer you and I have today will not run Windows 10 forever.
At some point it'll come to a stop.
Now, on top of this, they added what I'm calling the 18 month
release cycle or the 18 month support cycle.
Windows 10 has a twice yearly feature update.
It's a major update.
Usually it happens usually in the spring and in the fall.
Right now, they're just calling it first half or second half of the year to give
them a lot more flexibility about exactly when things get released.
But the bottom line is that twice a year they make a major update to Windows 10.
That major update is supported for 18 months.
So what that means is that for you and I, as long as we update to the most recent
major update, we're resetting another 18 month clock.
In other words, we get another 18 months of support.
Doing that every half year means we're always increasing by six months.
Every time we get the next update to another 18 months worth of release.
Now, of course, before this summer,
before the Windows 11 announcement, the expectation was that this would
continue forever, that every half year we get a new release of Windows 10.
As long as we were able to update it
on our machines, we would continue to have supported Windows 10.
The problem, of course, is twofold.
One is, yeah, they said that at some point
they might introduce a hardware incompatibility that said, OK,
your machine can't go any further than this update.
And 18 months after that,
your machine running with 10 will no longer be supported.
It's not that Windows 10 isn't supported, it's that Windows 10 is now unsupported
on your hardware because the hardware requirements have moved on.
That, too, got very confusing.
It didn't really get a lot of attention
paid to it because we never really encountered it.
And then came Windows 11. So with Windows 11,
they made a hard line in the sand for Windows 10, October the 14th, 2025.
What that means is that with Windows 11, they're able to actually make these
hardware requirement changes sometimes, perhaps some significant ones that would
truly break compatibility for older hardware.
That's Windows 11.
Windows 10 would keep being supported until October of 2025.
Now, if we factor in both the half yearly cycle and this end of support date
that they've thrown at us, we can infer the following.
The current release,
as I record this is the 2001 H1 release, the first half of 2021.
It will be supported until 12/13 2022.
That's actually on the Microsoft support site.
You can find those dates on their site.
The rest now becomes essentially a call.
It speculation, but it's following the rules that they've
put in place for half year release and 18 months support.
So the next release is the twenty one to the second half of 2021.
It'll be supported until the first half of 2023.
The first half of 2022 release will be supported until the second half of 2023.
You get the idea.
So without going through the entire table, here's the list.
And you can see that it ends with the 24h
one or the release that would be in the first half of twenty twenty four.
That will then be supported until the second half of 2025.
In other words, that October the 14th date
of 2025, that's what Windows 10 support going forward looks like.
Did they mislead?
Well, of course, Microsoft haters are going to say, yes,
they absolutely misled us by promising us support for an operating system forever.
OK, yep, maybe they did.
The issue is more, was it ever realistic
for any of us to sign up for that to to agree to that, to believe it?
Maybe not.
I know a lot of us were skeptical, but we didn't know what they were up to.
The bottom line is, regardless of how we got here, this is what it is.
Windows 10 will be supported until October
the 14th of 2025 unless Microsoft changes their mind in the interim.
We've got lots of releases of Windows 10
coming up, each of which will be supported for 18 months.
As long as you keep installing those,
you'll have continuous support until that end date.
A lot can happen in the next four years
that may have you deciding to stick with Windows 10 beyond its support date,
which is totally valuable, a viable thing to do, or jump ship to Windows 11.
Or maybe you'll end up with a new machine that comes with Windows 11.
Regardless, there's not a lot to panic about right now.
The fact is, with Windows 10, you've got four more years of usable life in there.
Even if you do stick to wanting it to be supported sometime in between.
Yep, maybe we'll make some decisions, but until then, keep running Windows 10
and keep it up to date. For updates, for related links.
For comments and more, visit Askleo.com/135573.
I'm Leo Notenboom.
This is Askleo.com.