After October 14, 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide free software updates from Windows Update, technical assistance, or security fixes for Windows 10. Your PC will still work, but with a general recommendation to upgrade to Windows 11.
If you’re not ready to upgrade from Windows 10 just yet, Microsoft is offering a temporary extension. Extended Security Updates, or ESU for short, is a paid subscription that keeps all those critical security updates coming once support for Windows 10 officially ends. But it doesn’t give you access to them forever and effectively it’s only a stopgap. For home use, it’ll cost about £30 per device for the first year. The price doubles each year too and only to a point that Microsoft decides to “turn off the lights”