Microsoft silently extends Windows 10 support to 2027

Well, color yours truly pleasantly surprised: after trying for more than three years – unsuccessfully, for the most part – to have Windows 10 users leave that operating system behind for Windows 11, Microsoft seems to have accepted that millions upon millions of consumers simply won’t do that despite the explicit, considerable security risks that choice entails. That is most probably why the company decided to not terminate its Extended Security Updates program for Windows 10 after all, but to move its deadline to October 16th, 2027 – a full year after it was supposed to end.

Microsoft did not make an official announcement on the matter, which is why most media outlets came across that policy change by chance. A handful of journalists noticed within the text of the company’s original post – back in June 2025 – that the end-of-support date had simply changed from Oct. 10, 2026 to Oct. 10, 2027. That is all. There was no mention of this in Microsoft’s official social media channels for Windows either, which is unusual but not unheard of. The company clearly meant to not make the change widely known, as it does seem like an admission of liability on its part.

As it was already the case with Windows 10, the ESU program is only related to security updates: there’ ll be no feature updates for Microsoft’s previous OS, which is perfectly fine. The official ESU page also confirms that, in order to get those updates, users need to be on the last Windows 10 version (22H2), which is understandable. Another change of note, though: Microsoft Office 365 apps running on Windows 10 also get an extra year of security updates, so they’ll be safe to use on that OS until October 10th, 2028. Those apps won’t receive any feature updates after August 2026, but they’ll be safe to run on Windows 10. So it was always doable, it seems.

It’s hard not to feel conflicted about Microsoft’s particular choice. On one hand, it’s commendable that the company acknowledges the huge ecosystem risk of having over 25% of all Windows-based PCs worldwide being used unprotected from viruses, malware or other network-related threats. On the other hand it’s doing the work necessary for those extended security updates and security intelligence definitions anyway (for businesses who pay for that), so it’s not like it’s investing any additional resources in order to offer those same updates to consumers. It’s still a positive development though – a rare occurrence in the world of Windows over the last few years – so it must be recognized as such.

Microsoft extending Windows 10 support to October 2027 re-reignited rumors about the next version of Windows being scheduled for release around that time, even if there’s no clear indication of this in the company’s current software development timeline. But with the PC components situation being so dire for so long, it’s not easy to imagine things being so different in the personal computer space in a year’s time that the release of a new Windows version – usually coinciding with the availability of new PCs – would make a lot of sense, even if the Xbox Helix angle is taken into account. Could yours truly be wrong? He sure hopes so!