Windows 10 reached end of support on 14 October 2025 — no more feature updates, no routine security patches, no standard support. The Extended Security Updates programme is the bridge: consumer ESU runs to 13 October 2026, and commercial ESU is available for up to three years. The catch is the pricing. Commercial ESU starts at around US$61 per device for year one and doubles every consecutive year. It is deliberately designed to be uncomfortable.
That’s the right way to read it — as a costed countdown, not a parking spot. Every month an unpatched-by-default Windows 10 machine stays in production, it’s a larger share of your attack surface, and the DBIR is clear that unpatched systems are now the leading way attackers get in.
The practical move is to inventory now: which machines can take Windows 11 (and just need the in-place upgrade), which need replacing on hardware grounds, and which genuinely need a year of ESU as a bridge while you stage the rest. Plan it across this financial year rather than discovering it as an emergency when something on a Windows 10 box gets exploited.