Until Microsoft did it already made it Very Make clear it wants you Upgrade your Windows 10 PC this yearThe company has announced that it will stop supporting Office apps on older OS from October.
one in blog postMicrosoft has confirmed that to continue using Microsoft 365 suite apps on your machine, you'll “need to upgrade to Windows 11” by October 14 – the same day support for Windows 10 will also end. And in many cases, upgrading to Windows 11 will require upgrading your machine as well.
That's because Windows 11 has some pretty big stuff Hardware Requirements which millions of old machines cannot accomplish, and Microsoft has already confirmed that it has no intention of changing those prerequisites.
It's so confident in the move that Microsoft Chief Marketing Officer Yousef Mehdi declared 2025 “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.”
“Whether the current PC needs a refresh, or it has security vulnerabilities that require the latest hardware-supported protections, now is the time to move forward with a new Windows 11 PC,” he wrote in another blog postearlier this month.
It's fair to say that some machines won't reach those minimum hardware requirements about to turn 10 years oldAnd that could probably be done with an upgrade anyway. But it's also true that a huge number of Windows 10 machines exist—the data has been published StatCounter There are almost twice as many PCs running Windows 10 than Windows 11 in December 2024 – meaning it may not be possible to switch them all before support ends.
There's some good news for any Windows 10 users hoping to stick with and use their Office apps. Just like operating systems, Microsoft 365 won't fall off a cliff and stop working on October 14. has confirmed Office apps will “continue to work as usual”, but may cause “performance and reliability issues over time” due to security and feature updates stopping.
If this is your strategy, it might be worth considering Microsoft Extended Security UpdatesWhich is being offered to consumers for the first time. Users can pay $30 to keep their PCs protected with updates for a year, while businesses can keep their machines protected for three years. Of course, this won't stop your apps from becoming outdated, but it will at least help keep the bad stuff at bay while you plan your next move.