Windows 10 reached end of support on 14 October 2025. That date has passed. If a machine in your business is still running Windows 10 right now, it is running an operating system that Microsoft no longer maintains. The point of this article is not to warn you about something coming. It is to help you plan your way off an operating system you are already past the deadline on.
I run service delivery for InterIntra, and we have spent the months since that deadline working through fleets across South Australian businesses. The pattern is consistent. The machines still turn on, everything looks normal, and so the urgency quietly drains away. That is exactly the trap. Let me explain what has actually changed and what your options are.
What "end of support" actually means
End of support is not a soft suggestion. From 14 October 2025, Microsoft stopped shipping free security updates, bug fixes and technical support for Windows 10. The practical consequences stack up quietly.
- No more security patches. When a new vulnerability is discovered in Windows 10, and they continue to be discovered, there is no fix coming. The hole stays open permanently.
- No Microsoft support. If something breaks at the operating system level, you are on your own. There is no vendor backstop.
- Software vendors are following suit. Browsers, line-of-business applications and security tools are progressively dropping Windows 10 support. Over time, more of your everyday software will stop being tested or updated for it.
The thing that catches people out is that the machine still works. It boots, it opens email, it runs the accounting package. That apparent normality lulls people into thinking the situation is fine. It is not. An unpatched operating system gets less safe every single week it stays in service.
Why running it now is a real risk, not a someday problem
An unsupported operating system is a growing attack surface. Each newly disclosed Windows 10 vulnerability is one that will never be patched, and attackers actively scan for exactly these known, unpatched weaknesses. Time works against you here. The longer a machine stays on Windows 10, the more accumulated holes it carries.
There is a compliance dimension too. Running an unsupported operating system fails the "patch operating systems" control in the ACSC Essential Eight, which expects you to use vendor-supported versions and apply security updates. If your business is working toward that baseline, Windows 10 is now a direct contradiction of it.
And it increasingly shows up at renewal time. Cyber insurers now routinely ask whether you run supported, patched operating systems. If the honest answer is no, that can reduce your cover, raise your premium, or give the insurer grounds to push back on a claim. We cover this in more detail in our piece on cyber insurance for Australian businesses. The short version: an unsupported OS is now a question on the form, and the wrong answer has consequences.
Your three options
Once you accept that staying put is not viable, the path forward comes down to three options. Most businesses end up using a mix of all three across their fleet.
1. Upgrade eligible PCs to Windows 11
For machines that meet the hardware requirements, upgrading to Windows 11 is free. Those requirements are TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, a supported 64-bit processor and at least 4GB of RAM. Many business machines bought in the last five years or so qualify, so for a good chunk of a typical fleet this is the simplest route. The work is in confirming eligibility and scheduling the upgrade so it does not interrupt anyone's day.
2. Replace machines that cannot meet the requirements
Some devices will not qualify, usually because of an older processor or the absence of a TPM. No amount of configuration changes that. These machines need to be replaced with hardware that runs Windows 11 properly. Our hardware and software team handles procurement and setup so replacement is orderly rather than a scramble.
3. Extended Security Updates as a short-term bridge
Microsoft offers Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 to businesses, for a limited window, with the cost escalating each year. Treat ESU as exactly what it is: a way of buying time, not a fix. It keeps security patches flowing to a machine you have a concrete plan to retire, while you work through upgrades and replacements. It is a bridge across a gap, not a destination. Leaning on it indefinitely just defers the same decision at a rising cost.
Start with knowing your fleet
You cannot plan any of this until you know what you are working with. Which devices can upgrade in place? Which ones have to be replaced? How old is each machine, and what is actually installed on it? Without those answers, every option above is guesswork.
This is exactly what a device and infrastructure audit is for. It produces a clear inventory of every machine, flags the ones that qualify for Windows 11 and the ones at the end of their useful life, and gives you a factual basis for budgeting and sequencing. We walk through the process in our guide to the IT infrastructure audit for Australian businesses, and it is the core of our ICT Audits service.
From there it becomes a staged rollout. You upgrade and replace in waves, scheduled around how the business actually works, so nothing critical goes down at the wrong moment. For businesses on our managed IT support, this runs in the background as part of normal lifecycle management rather than as a disruptive project.
Where this leaves you
The deadline has already passed. Windows 10 is unsupported today, and every month a machine stays on it adds to your exposure, your compliance gap and your insurance risk. None of that improves on its own. The good news is that the work is entirely manageable when it is planned. Audit the fleet, decide upgrade or replace for each machine, use ESU only as a deliberate bridge, and roll it out in stages. A planned migration is calm and predictable. An emergency one, triggered by a breach or a failed insurance claim, is neither.