The US software company announced that it will officially stop supporting the Windows 10 operating system, which currently has 240 million users, on October 14.
Microsoft said that Windows 10 machines will not be supported in any form after this date, including security patches for ordinary users.
"This is an irreversible decision," the company announced.
The exception is only for business and organizational customers, but on the condition that they pay a fee, depending on the number of machines in the system as well as the work to be processed. Microsoft will support in stages in this case instead of continuously as before. However, the company encourages "upgrading to Windows 11 as the optimal solution".
Statcounter statistics reflect Microsoft's concerns that many users have not yet upgraded to the new operating system. In December 2024, the report showed that Windows 10's market share did not even decrease, but increased to 62.7% compared to the previous month, while Windows 11 dropped to 34.12%. The number of users at 240 million also did not change significantly compared to two years earlier.
Stopping software updates and security patches poses a number of information security risks. The US company likens this to leaving the front door of a house open. Systems without updates are more vulnerable to spyware or malware, especially viruses that target new vulnerabilities after the manufacturer stops upgrading.
Microsoft claims that Windows 11 was created to improve security protocols, performance, speed, and modernize with built-in AI. It is considered a worthy replacement for Windows 10, an operating system that is more than 10 years old.
To know if a new computer supports Windows 11, users can download the PC Health Check software released by Microsoft. Here, the application will notify in detail the conditions and hardware available to see if it is suitable for upgrading to the new operating system.
Windows 11 requires new generation devices such as integrated TPM 2.0 chip, supported processor. Most older computers are incompatible for the two reasons mentioned above. While there are some tricks to bypass the TPM 2.0 requirement, many experts advise users to upgrade their hardware to run the new operating system to avoid future security-related problems.