When large listed companies have good news to share, they write a press release so that the publications that cover their news carry this message and everyone reads it. When they have bad news to report, they publish a blog post late Friday afternoon, before a long holiday weekend.
And when they have true bad news to share, they bury it at the end of an unrelated press release or blog post, hoping no one will notice.
Now that you’re armed with this knowledge, I invite you to read this unsigned Microsoft Support article, published today, titled “How we are maximizing value in Windows 10.” You will find, in a footnote, this sentence: “The end of support date for Windows 10, set for October 14, 2025, remains unchanged”.
Customers have made it clear to Microsoft that they are unhappy with this decision
To the untrained eye, this is a pretty bland statement. If it’s unchanged, it’s not news, is it?
Well let me translate for you. Many Microsoft customers still use Windows 10. Some do so by choice, others because they have perfectly working hardware that runs Windows 10 but doesn’t meet Windows 11’s strict compatibility requirements.
For all those PCs in all those homes and offices, Microsoft is going to stop sending security updates in less than two years. At the end of the support date. These customers will then be faced with the difficult choice of continuing to use unsupported software, leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks, or getting rid of perfectly good hardware and paying for new PCs with a supported OS. the editor is in charge.
Many of these customers have made it clear to Microsoft that they are unhappy with this decision. In California, the public interest group CALPIRG wrote an open letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, asking him to rethink the policy. “Microsoft’s decision to end support for Windows 10,” they say, “could cause the largest-ever increase in the number of discarded computers and prevent Microsoft from meeting its goals for sustainable development.”
Microsoft’s announcement is therefore a way of saying: “No. No extension of support. Sorry, not sorry”.
Upgrading is not possible for customers using Windows 10 on hardware that does not meet Windows 11 hardware requirements
To take a step back, Microsoft obviously put itself in a strange state of mind by putting itself in competition with… itself. The company says there are approximately 1.4 billion Windows PCs in use worldwide today. But it doesn’t say how many of them are still on Windows 10. Third-party statistics suggest the percentage is still well over 60%, and over 70% in some parts of the world. That’s at least 800 million computers. Even if half of them are retired or upgraded in the next two years, that’s still 400 million computers.
Microsoft defenders could argue that Windows 10 has reached the end of its normal 10-year life cycle. Windows 7 didn’t get a reprieve, nor did Windows 8. So why should Windows 10 be treated any differently?
But upgrading isn’t possible for customers using Windows 10 on hardware that doesn’t meet Windows 11’s strict hardware compatibility requirements. When October 2025 rolls around, those devices won’t have any paths migration to a newer version supported by Microsoft.
“Replace ineligible Windows 10 devices with new Windows 11 Pro devices”
So what are the choices for owners of computers that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11?
In another blog post, under the title “What about Windows 11?” Microsoft offers this advice to these customers: “Replace ineligible Windows 10 devices with new Windows 11 Pro devices.”
I suspect Microsoft is offering enterprise customers a loophole in the form of a paid support option for extended security updates. That’s exactly what Microsoft did for three years after Windows 7 ended support. Corporate administrators may complain, but they’ll write those checks.
A dangerous and irresponsible choice
Unfortunately, this choice probably won’t be available to the very large number of people who use Windows 10 on home or small business PCs. These people will likely continue to use their old operating systems and ignore Microsoft’s increasingly pressing calls for them to replace their perfectly good computers. Windows 10 will continue to work as it always has, even after the end of support deadline. But it won’t receive security updates, which makes this choice increasingly dangerous and irresponsible.
The good news is that this announcement from Microsoft does not close the door to a change of heart next year.
But finally here is some good advice: don’t forget to publish your press releases on a Friday late in the afternoon.
Source: “ZDNet.com”