Microsoft Says It’s Time to Upgrade Your Old Windows 10 PC

Last January on CESMicrosoft’s chief marketing officer Yusuf Mehdi announced that 2024 is “the year of the AI ​​PC.” And whether you believe the prediction came true or not – many new PCs come with AI-accelerating neural processing units, but far from all of them – you can’t deny that Microsoft. he tried very hard to make it happen.

This year, Mehdi is back with another prediction: 2025 will be “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.” This year is also, not coincidentally, the year that most Windows 10 PCs will stop receiving new security updates.

Mehdi’s post includes new announcements, if any, but it sets the tone for Microsoft’s approach to the sunset of Windows 10, trying to balance the carrot and the stick. Carrot also includes Windows 11 updates (both AI and other) with the performance, security, and battery life benefits of new PC hardware. The stick is that Windows 10 support ends in October 2025, and Microsoft has no interest in extending that date to the general public or extending the senior Windows 11 support to older PCs.

“Whether your current PC needs to be refreshed, or it has security issues that require the latest security updates, now is the time to move forward with a new Windows 11 PC,” writes Mehdi.

Microsoft and its partners apparently benefit more from users buying new PCs than they do when Microsoft offers free OS updates for existing machines. It is also true that many PCs are not supported can run Windows 11 wellespecially with well-thought-out hardware upgrades.

But that’s why most users of older, outdated PCs would benefit more from upgrading now. When Microsoft announced and released the first version of Windows 11 in 2021, it stopped support for PCs with processors that, at the time, were no more than three or four years old. By October, the machine will be seven or eight years old. PCs that can’t run Windows 11 will be around a decade or more away. In that time, CPUs and GPUs have grown faster, laptop screens have gotten bigger and better, and older devices have had more time to drain their batteries and suffer from physical wear and tear.

Limited Time Escape Hatch

Mehdi refused to mention these Windows 10 users who want it stay Windows 10 users have an escape hatch. The company’s Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 10 will allow users and businesses to continue to receive updates for one year after October 2025; Consumers can get just one year of replacement for their home PCs, but organizations can get up to three additional years. The caveat is that you have to pay for this access: $30 for one year renewal if you are an individual as well between $1 and $61 per user for schools and businesses, with fees that increase significantly in the second and third years.

Windows 10 still accounts for between half and two-thirds of Windows users worldwide and in the U.S., according to reports from sources like Statcounter and Steam Hardware Survey. Leaving many Windows PCs vulnerable to security threats could lead to serious problems, which probably explains in part why Microsoft would like to see more updates this year. But even 2025 he does being the “year of the Windows 11 PC Refresh,” it’s hard to see how it could happen so quickly that many Windows 10 PCs aren’t running.

This article appeared first Ars Technica.