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Windows 10 support officially ended on Oct. 14, 2025.
Consumers have free options to extend updates for up to a year.
Doing nothing is not a safe option.
After more than a decade, with installations on well over 1 billion PCs, Windows 10 has finally reached its official end-of-support date.
The official deadline was Oct. 14, 2025. As of that date, PCs running Windows 10 will no longer receive monthly security updates. If you have an older laptop or desktop PC that doesn't pass the compatibility checks for Windows 11, Microsoft will block you from upgrading through Windows Update, and they will encourage you to buy a new PC instead.
Also: How to get free Windows 10 security updates through October 2026
But you have other alternatives, including several ways to continue getting security updates at no cost for an extra year -- until October 2026. There's no time to procrastinate, though -- if you're responsible for one or more Windows 10 PCs that fail Microsoft's Windows 11 compatibility tests, you need to choose one of the five options listed in this article.
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