Microsoft confirmed the long death dance of Windows 10 will end October 15th 2025. What does this mean for your business?
Windows 10 end of life
Microsoft’s Windows 10 end of life means there will be no more security updates for the operating system as of October 2025. Microsoft implements end of life processes on all their products (more about other app ends below).
What do you need to do?
Right now you need to check all your business computers running Windows 10. Can they be upgraded to Windows 11? Microsoft put really high hardware requirements for Windows 11 so a lot of Windows 10 machines purchased before 2022 won’t be eligible.
Once you find the Windows 10 computers that can be upgraded, I recommend you plonk Windows 11 on in the next 6 months.
Windows 11 has been around long enough now the software makers should have updated their software to work with Windows 11.
You want to be finished this process well before October 2025. Bonus is a lot of hardware manufacturers have sales on hardware that won’t run all the AI dancing baloney Microsoft begs people to use.
The Microsoft Circle of Product Life
I don’t why people are shocked when Microsoft announces end of life for a product. Why do they end a product? First reason is security updates. Hackers have had nine year to poke holes in Windows 10.
Second reason, the big reason these days is Microsoft has to keep its stockholders happy with perpetual growth and new products. Microsoft increasingly changes its products so you have to buy more and more monthly addons and features to do really basic work and add security.
Access and Publisher End of Life
Microsoft condemned Access and Publisher to death row so long ago I’m amazed the Supreme Court hasn’t intervened. I’m sure they’re innocent.
With Publisher, Microsoft has a replacement in preview, Microsoft Designer, cloud based and fully loaded with AI dancing baloney. Most people gave up on Publisher years ago as Microsoft refused to update it to 21st century needs. Canva grabbed that market.
Microsoft has been trying to murder Access for years. They can’t upgrade Access to a cloud version (like Publisher with Designer). Microsoft wants you to switch to PowerBI addons in Microsoft 365 that cost a monthly bomb for business.
Businesses still use Access for mission critical processes. You can be convert some of these databases to a SQL lite application without costing a fortune. However if your database hooks into Outlook there is no fix. The new version of Outlook does not support hooks from Access. Microsoft forces you to use PowerBI addons plus Exchange Online.
You can forget about migrating your Access database to FileMaker. Claris, the maker of Filemaker, has also gone to an expensive cloud model.
The dance death of Windows 10: all part of the Microsoft circle of product life.
