Microsoft announced that on October 14, 2025, Windows 10 will stop supporting the Windows operating system, which can lead to serious consequences for hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Windows 10 remains the most common version of the OS and many computers are still operating on this platform. The lack of security updates will create risks to the system and user data.
Companies and individuals will still be able to pay for updates for another three years, which will grow steadily every year. Microsoft has not yet provided prices for end users, saying only that it will publish information on prices "closer to October 2025". However, for most Windows PCs 10, the end of this era is no longer around the corner.
This would usually not be a big problem; The latest Windows 7 and Windows 8 support residues were running out in January 2023 and the world has not ended, although some PCs continue to operate under the control of these OS versions. But there are important things to stop Windows 10 support that are slightly different from other recent support dates:
- First, a historically short period of time between the replacement of the operating system and the termination of security updates.
Windows 8 was replaced by Windows 10 at the end of 2015 and the support ended in January 2023; Windows 7 was replaced at the end of 2012 and the main support ended in January 2020. In both cases, it is just over seven years between replacement and stopping support, compared to just over four years for Windows 10.
- Secondly, a historically large percentage of users is still actively using an outpatient operating system.
Statcounter data in September 2024 show that Windows 10 still operates on almost two thirds of all active Windows systems worldwide, compared to about one third for Windows 11.
Windows 8 worked only 3 percent of the PC with Windows by January 2022; Windows 7 worked 35 percent of active PCs with Windows in January 2019 (which explains why Microsoft offered extended support for updates).
- Finally, Windows 11 will partially close this gap over the next year, but it is possible that Windows 10 will still remain the most used version of Windows after its main support has been completed.
Many Windows 10 PCs cannot be updated to Windows 11 because they do not meet system requirements. The slow implementation of Windows 11 is exacerbated by the fact that PCs issued by 2018 or so, simply cannot launch it without bypass.
In fact, there is no precedent for this; The old versions of Windows (approximately 3.1 to Vista) were mostly simple to understand things, such as the speed and capabilities of equipment, and the benefits of buying a new PC were more obvious every two to three years.
But the equipment replacement cycles became longer, and technically nothing prevented anyone from installing Windows 10 on any equipment that was supplied with Windows Vista or the newer version, except for the cost of a license and the patience of the user with old equipment.
Windows 11 system requirements have cut off the amazing amount of perfect functional PCs for sometimes vague safety reasons.
Now that a year has passed to the end of Windows 10, and since Windows 10, judging by all, is not going out, we publish a series of articles that explore alternatives to money spending either on a new PC or for constant Windows 10.
The path of the least resistance is likely to be updated to the unsupported Windows 11 installation, since the operating system will mainly start any software you are using in Windows 10.
In August, there was also information that the installation of new NVIDIA video cards can cause cyclical failures with a blue "death screen" on Windows 10 operating system.
