One of Microsoft’s key projects is to get people moving from Windows 10 to Windows 11, and it has tightened the screws with a couple more techy threats.
In a blog post that has since been pulled, Microsoft stated that support for Microsoft Office apps on Windows 10 will end on October 14, adding that the offer of a free upgrade to Windows 11 was not permanent.
The statements seem consistent with the company’s plans for Windows 10. Last year, we knew October 14 was the end date for support for Windows 10. However, there was, and still is, the option of Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) booster, which provides an additional year of security updates for around £25 ($30).
According to the latest Steam Hardware Survey, from December 2024, there are still a lot of people using Windows 10. Out of the players on the digital distribution service, 54.96 per cent of them were on Windows 11, 42.39 per cent on Windows 10. And you might imagine Steam users would be, on average, more techy than the PC baseline.
Once support ends in October, holdouts will still be able to use their PCs, and Microsoft 365 Office apps. But they won’t receive updates, including security updates, which makes their continued use increasingly hard to recommend.
How to upgrade to Windows 11
Microsoft has not made this latest Windows 11 transition easy, with hardware demands that ruled out some relatively recent systems at the software’s 2021 release.
Windows 11 demands your PC has a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, a security chip found either baked into a computer’s processor or on the motherboard. It’s not something you can typically buy and slot into your PC.
Microsoft is not backing down on this requirement either. If your PC does not have the requisite TPM, it wants you to buy a new computer.
If you’re in that exact position, there may be an easy way out. Some PCs have TPM support that is disabled as standard in a software layer known as the BIOS.
You can access this by pressing a key right as the system begins to boot up — long before you see a Windows screen. That key varies by manufacturer but it will typically be F2, F10, another F-key, the Delete key or Esc.
A quick search online should point you towards the key you need. If there is a TPM option you should find it in the “Security” or “Advanced” section of the BIOS, or similar.
By the time Windows 10 support is dropped, Windows 11 will have been out for four years. And it will have been just over 10 years since Windows 10 came out, in the summer of 2015.