Microsoft U-turns on Windows 10 support

Security updates will be available until 2028

In a reversal of its previous stance, Microsoft will provide several more years of official support for users running Office or Microsoft 365 on Windows 10 machines.

Microsoft has announced quietly via an updated support article that Microsoft 365 apps will continue to receive security patches and bug fixes on Windows 10 until October 10, 2028.

Earlier this year, Microsoft had stated that Office apps running on Windows 10 would lose support when that operating system is officially retired.

Now, Microsoft appears to have had a change of heart and says it will provide several more years of official support for users running Office tools or the Microsoft 365 suite on Windows 10 machines. An extract from the article says:

“To help maintain security while you transition to Windows 11, Microsoft will continue providing security updates for Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 for three years after Windows 10 reaches end of support. These updates will be delivered through the standard update channels, ending on October 10, 2028.”

The company had already confirmed plans to continue updating Windows Defender malware definitions "at least" until October 2028.

Despite the softening of Microsoft’s stance on security updates and bug fixes, the updated article remains a call to action to upgrade to Windows 11.

“Although apps such as Word will continue to work after Windows 10 reaches end of support, using an unsupported operating system can cause performance and reliability issues when running Microsoft 365 Apps. If your organization is using Microsoft 365 Apps on devices running Windows 10, those devices should move to Windows 11.”

Windows 11 has been available for almost four years, but corporate IT departments have dragged their heels with adoption. This reluctance has been attributed to multiple factors including the fact that Windows 11 requires a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, which many older motherboards do not support, which means hardware upgrades ahead of schedule. Not all the new AI-driven functionality is wanted, and there has been a steady stream of bug reports.

The sluggish rate of transition to Windows 11 – approximately 35% at the end of 2024) is precisely why Microsoft has adopted such an unyielding stance. Redmond’s change of heart suggests that the company might have decided against upsetting such a sizeable proportion of its customer base by forcing them to upgrade before they’re ready.