The sad news: Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, a decade after the release of the operating system. Yes, it’s retirement for the beloved OS, which runs millions of computers around the world.
The good news: Microsoft has a big event coming up on June 24 where it’s expected to unveil the next generation of Windows with company CEO Satya Nadella and chief product officer Panos Panay doing the needful.
On Microsoft’s Windows 10 Home and Pro Lifecycle Policy page, the company has mentioned that it will “continue to support at least one Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel until October 14, 2025”. It doesn’t mean that everyone will stop using Windows 10 as soon as the next edition arrives. It takes a few years to migrate over to a new OS and this is something we have seen when users had to upgrade from Windows 7. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to release more important updates for its current OS.
Since Windows 10 Home, Pro, Pro Education and Pro for Workstations is used almost everywhere, the upgrade will take time, especially when it comes to educational institutions. Windows 11, or whatever it’s called, will come at a time when PC sales have picked up because of the pandemic and most of us continue to work from home while the demand for additional home entertainment and communication devices continues to be on the higher side.
For some time, it was expected that Windows 10X will be the next generation of Windows but that has been shelved. “We concluded that the 10X technology shouldn’t just be confined to a subset of customers. Instead of bringing a product called Windows 10X to market in 2021 like we originally intended, we are leveraging learnings from our journey thus far and accelerating the integration of key foundational 10X technology into other parts of Windows and products at the company,” the company has posted in a blog.
What you can surely expect from project ‘Sun Valley’ is a new user interface meant to be touch-friendly. “Soon we will share one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade to unlock greater economic opportunity for developers and creators,” Nadella mentioned during his recent keynote at the Microsoft Build 2021 event.
When it comes to personal computers, Windows is a dominant player and, according to CNBC, is the source of 14 per cent of total revenue for Microsoft. Since it became available, Microsoft has given two updates each year to Windows 10.
In the next version of the OS, we are expecting the company to push forward one of the big advantages it enjoys — Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service that gives users access to a huge library of games on both Xbox console and PC. Also, let’s hope that Microsoft has an option to run on limited, Chromebook-style hardware.
