It’s been coming for some time, but Windows 10 is approaching its “End of Life”, where support ends for the product on 14th October.
What can you do?
This advice is targeted at home users or those who have their devices set up for home use.
Those on Small Business, Corporate or Enterprise networks, you’d better give your Microsoft Account Manager a ring. Whilst I give an overview of what you’ll need to do, the TL;DR is… it gets expensive… fast.
Will Windows 10 stop working on or after 14th October on my computer?
Lets be clear – If your device has Windows 10 on it, it will continue to boot up. It will continue to work as-is.
However, you will be exposing yourself to security issues.
Security – it’s too important to ignore
With data breaches left, right and centre, along with new computer exploits turning up daily, I would strongly urge you not to run an unpatched operating system, unless the machine was disconnected from the Internet.
“It will be fine” is not going to cut it in the days of interconnected computing, where exploits come faster than you can say “Please give $1000 of Bitcoin to unlock your files”.
Your personal information is worth money, as is an exploited computer that has access to bank accounts and data, which is worth a lot more than you would like.
There are zero-day patchers such as 0patch out there, along with appropriate endpoint protection, but even then, this might not be a suitable solution in the medium term.
So what can you do?
Upgrade to Windows 11… If your device is capable
Windows 11 forced a new set of requirements on PC hardware. They include:
- An Intel 8th Generation CPU or above, or an AMD Ryzen 2000 series CPU or above
- A Trusted Platform Module 2.0
- UEFI Configured and Enabled with SecureBoot enabled
A lot of older hardware (Intel Kaby Lake – released in 2017) or below won’t work without a lot of workaround and digging around. If your PC is Windows 11-capable, it should be sitting in your Windows Update folder, ready to go at this point
You might also see a Windows Update icon with a blue dot. That’s your sign that Windows 11 is ready to install.
Note, you’ll need 30Gb of free disk space to install it. Allow for a good 20-30 minutes of downtime whilst it installs.
Enrol in Windows 10 ESU for consumers
If your device isn’t capable of running Windows 11, and you’re running Windows 10 at home, there is a way to get security updates for a year.
On the Microsoft Windows 10 End of Life Page, for the first time, Microsoft is offering Extended Security Updates to home users for one year from the end of mainline support. That should be enough time to locate new hardware.
To enrol in the consumer Windows 10 ESU programme, make sure your device meets the following requirements:
- Devices need to be running Windows 10, version 22H2 Home, Professional, Pro Education or Workstations edition.
- Devices need to have the latest Windows update installed.
- The Microsoft account used to sign in to the device must be an administrator account.
- The ESU license will be associated with the Microsoft account used to enrol. You may be prompted to sign in with a Microsoft account if you typically sign into Windows with a local account.
- The device must not be connected to an Active Directory, Entra, in Kiosk mode or enrolled in a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution. Those are considered commercial devices and need a Business Licence.
The Windows ESU Upgrade for home users requires a Microsoft Account. There are four ways you can get it:
- At no additional cost if you are syncing your PC Settings.
- Redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points by using Bing to search
- One-time purchase of $30 USD or local currency equivalent plus applicable tax.
- Users in the European Economic Area should have an enrolment option free of charge. Check Windows Update to Enrol.
All enrolment options provide extended security updates through 13 October 2026. You can enrol in ESU any time until the programme ends on 13 October 2026.
To get ESU on your Windows 10 device:
- Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update. If your device meets the prerequisites, you’ll see a link to enrol in ESU.
- Once you select Enrol now, you’ll start the ESU enrollment. If you are signed into Windows with a local account, you will be prompted to sign into your Microsoft account. If you are already backing up your PC Settings, you will see a prompt to enrol your device.
- If you aren’t backing up your Windows settings, you can choose if you want to begin backing up your settings, redeem Rewards or make a one-time purchase to enrol in ESU.
You can use your existing ESU license on up to 10 devices once you enrol in ESU.
There’s a full guide at https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/extended-security-updates.
Enrol in Windows 10 ESU for Business
Get your wallet out. Prepare to pay.
Business users will not be happy when they find out they will need to pay for ESU upgrades. You will be paying the following, depending on how long you’re going to need Windows 10 for:
- Year 1 – $61 per device
- Year 2 – $122 per device
- Year 3 – $244 per device
Please note that this applies per device, not per user.
For some line of business work, you may not have the luxury of upgrading (be it hardware-related, tool-related or time-related). You’ll need to enable them and apply them.
For more details, refer to the Microsoft Learn articles.
It goes without saying that this gets expensive fast, no matter how much you are saving today by keeping your hardware going a little longer, and you should be planning your hardware refreshes.
Beyond the Simple Moves
So, you’ve chosen to make life interesting for yourself. Thankfully, there are other options out there – but they will require learning, switching operating systems or playing fast and loose.
As a preface, in a lot of cases, these are viable for a single user. Migrating a business onto these solutions will take time, training and money… and I suspect at this point in time, you don’t have any of those (along with just enough skills to know that running sudo rm -rf is an extremely bad idea).
Jump to ChromeOS (or ChromeOS Flex)
Maybe you’re happy giving all your data to Google and you live in a web-based world (and that does apply to a lot of people these days, be it living in WordPress, Canva, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 Office Online and so on), maybe you’d want to consider ChromeOS (for a new device) or ChromeOS Flex (if you want to roll your own device).
The ChromeOS experience isn’t a bad one these days – I live out of it occasionally, and it can do a lot of things (if I am working to the 90/10 principle), to the point where I ran a lot of the blog out of one for some time. You can find out more about my ChromeOS move here.
For those who want to roll their own equipment, try ChromeOS Flex and check the support list.
If you don’t want to Google your life, try FydeOS. It’s ChromeOS without the Google bits.
There is a cost, though.
Migrate to Linux
It’s been years since Linux has been “hard” (or to the point where you need to go to the command line on a daily basis that isn’t system-critical). If you’re starting in Linux, you can create bootable USB sticks with a Linux distribution of your choice.
Pick a distro, any distro.
For starting choices, I can recommend:
- Linux Mint – I find this to be a good entry point, with a lot of the drivers managed for you to the point I can get this working on a Surface Laptop in a plug-and-play environment, and everything just works.
- Ubuntu – A very well-supported distribution. Might need a little time to play with, but it’smore than workable.
- Manjaro – If you like to live a little more on the seat of your pants, Manjaro can be great fun, as it is based on Arch Linux. I’ve driven it in a Virtual Environment as a Virtual Desktop with Shells.com.
- Debian – If you want the source of Mint/Ubuntu, Debian is one of the biggest distros out there. Good luck.
- ChromeOS Flex – If you live in the Chrome ecosystem (or just in websites), ChromeOS Flex allows you to repurpose your equipment. See above.
- Bazzite – for the gamers out there, it is possible to bring your games over (bar the usual anti-cheat suspects). It’s worth investigating if you have the hardware to run it
There are many different flavours of Linux out there, some of which are more server-based (Red Hat Linux), gaming-focused (Bazzite) or feature specific. It’s a rabbit hole you can dive into and not come out quickly.
There’s a list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions. Prepare to dive deep into a wikihole.
However, before you install any Linux Distribution, back up your data first, as the installers will normally wipe your storage as part of the installation process.
Install Windows 11, “bypassing” checks.
Editor’s warning: Check the Microsoft Licence Agreement before even considering this.
It is possible to install Windows 11 with a few registry changes or by creating a new Windows Image to install on your device. ZDNet has instructions on how to.
Again, back up your data beforehand. It’s just good data hygiene.
Time is running out
I’m not being a Microsoft shill here (for reference, your author runs macOS on as their primary driver, Linux on their NAS, Windows 11 and ChromeOS on laptop devices), but if you are running Windows 10 at home, you need to do something.
The simplest thing if you can’t afford a replacement computer (I never said new – I’ve had great fun with ex-corporate equipment off eBay that’s been good value) is to get the Windows 10 ESU. At worst, it means enabling syncing your PC settings with Windows back-up, doing enough searches with Bing to earn 1000 points (and with some of the tasks they have, you can rack up 1000 points in a couple of days), or ponying up the $30.
It’ll buy you just over a year to make a decision on what you want to do – be it make a switch to Linux, jump to ChromeOS Flex, or even bite the bullet and get a replacement device.
But if you do buy a replacement device from a marketplace, ensure it can run Windows 11. That means reading the specifications and ensuring they meet the Microsoft Hardware Compatibility requirements and Compatibility Lists.
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