Windows 10 has ended. What your options actually are

Windows 10 reached the end of support on 14 October 2025. Version 22H2 was the final release. Your computer did not stop working that day and it will not stop working tomorrow, which is exactly why this is so easy to leave alone.

What stopped is the security updates. Microsoft is direct about it: the machines keep running, and they stop receiving fixes. Flaws found after the cutoff stay open on your machine, permanently, and the gap widens every month.

You have four options. Only one of them is free, most people qualify for it without realising, and the reason they think they do not is usually a setting rather than a limitation.

Option one: upgrade to Windows 11, at no cost#

If your PC meets the requirements, the upgrade is free and offered through Windows Update. There is no purchase and no new licence.

The published minimum is a 1 GHz processor with two or more cores, 4 GB of memory, 64 GB of storage, DirectX 12 graphics, a screen larger than 9 inches at 720p or better, UEFI firmware with Secure Boot capability, and TPM 2.0.

Almost nobody fails on the processor, the memory or the storage. Nearly everyone who is blocked is blocked on the last two, and this is where the useful part is.

The TPM question, which is where most people give up too early#

A Trusted Platform Module is a small security chip. Windows 11 requires version 2.0, and the compatibility checker will refuse a machine without it.

Here is what the refusal does not tell you: on a very large number of computers sold in the last decade, the module is physically present and switched off in firmware. It ships disabled by default. The same is true of Secure Boot, which is frequently turned off on machines that are perfectly capable of it.

Microsoft says so itself, twice, on the specifications page. Against both the TPM and the Secure Boot requirement it links instructions for how your PC "might be enabled to meet this requirement". That phrasing is doing real work. It is not describing a machine that qualifies. It is describing one that could.

The check is worth making before you accept that your computer is finished, because the two outcomes are a firmware setting and several hundred pounds. If you are not sure what your machine is entitled to, the computer update checker will tell you where its operating system stands.

If the module genuinely is absent, that is a real answer and the upgrade is closed to you. It is just worth arriving at it deliberately rather than being told it by a checker that only reports the current state of a setting.

Option two: extended security updates, which buy time rather than solve anything#

Microsoft runs a consumer Extended Security Updates programme for eligible Windows 10 machines. Enrolled PCs keep receiving security updates until 12 October 2027.

Two things to be clear about, because this option gets oversold in both directions.

It is real protection. Security updates are the thing that stopped, and this is the thing that restarts them. If you have a working machine that cannot take Windows 11, it is a legitimate choice rather than a stopgap for the disorganised.

It is also a deadline wearing the costume of a solution. October 2027 arrives, and you are in the same position with a machine two years older. Enrol if you need the time for a reason, not to avoid making the decision.

For current enrolment terms, go to Microsoft directly rather than to any page quoting a figure. Terms and availability for this programme have moved more than once, and a number that was right when an article was written is not evidence that it is right now.

Option three: replace the machine#

Sometimes correct, and more often reached too early. A computer that is fast enough for what you do and blocked only by a firmware setting is not a computer that needs replacing.

If you do replace it, the honest sequence is to establish first that the machine cannot be upgraded, second that it cannot do the work you need at acceptable speed, and only then to shop. Those are separate questions and the answer to the third is worthless without the first two.

Option four: carry on unpatched#

People will tell you this is reckless and people will tell you it is fine. Neither is a description of what actually happens.

What happens is that nothing changes visibly, ever, while the number of known and unfixed ways into your machine grows. There is no alert and no moment of failure. That is the entire problem with the risk: it is real, it accumulates, and it produces no signal at all until something goes wrong, at which point the accumulation is not recoverable.

If you take this route, take it deliberately and narrow the exposure. Keep the browser current, since it is the thing actually touching the internet all day and it is still supported. Do not use the machine for banking. Keep a backup somewhere the machine cannot reach, because the failure mode that hurts is the one that encrypts everything it can see.

What has not actually ended#

Worth stating plainly, because the scare stories are loose here.

Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 did not stop working and did not stop being patched. Microsoft is continuing security updates for them on Windows 10 for three years past the cutoff, until 10 October 2028, while recommending you upgrade in the meantime.

Where support genuinely has gone is the purchased, one-off versions. Office 2016 and 2019 are out of support on every operating system. Office 2021 and Office 2024 keep running on Windows 10 but no longer receive support there, while the same versions remain supported on Windows 11.

And the machine itself is not slower because support ended. Support and performance are unrelated, and a computer that got sluggish over the last two years has an ordinary cause you can find and usually fix. That is a different question with a different answer.

The short version#

Check whether TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are present but disabled before you believe your PC cannot take Windows 11, because for a lot of machines that is the whole story. If it truly cannot, decide between enrolling for updates until October 2027 and replacing the machine, on the basis of how much longer you actually want to keep it. And if you choose to carry on as you are, do it knowing the risk grows quietly rather than announcing itself.