You are not out of time
Standard support ended in October 2025, but consumer Extended Security Updates now run to 12 October 2027. Microsoft extended this in June 2026, and a great deal of advice still online has not caught up.
You have until 12 October 2027, not next month. Most of what people are being told about this is out of date.
Written for home users in Luton and the surrounding towns. No sales pitch, and the honest answer includes the cases where you do not need to do anything yet.
Standard support ended in October 2025, but consumer Extended Security Updates now run to 12 October 2027. Microsoft extended this in June 2026, and a great deal of advice still online has not caught up.
Before accepting that it cannot, check the BIOS. On a lot of machines the only failed requirement is TPM and it is switched off by default. Turning it on often makes the free official upgrade available.
Whichever route you take. Far more people lose photos during an upgrade than ever lose them to a virus, and a backup makes every other decision reversible.
Two different things get muddled here constantly, and the difference is not a technicality.
Windows security patches fix flaws in Windows itself. Those are what stopped in October 2025 unless you enrol in Extended Security Updates.
Antivirus definition updates teach your security software to recognise new malware. Microsoft has said those continue for some time yet. They are genuinely worth having, and they do not close an unpatched hole in Windows.
So “my antivirus is still updating” is true and is not the same as “my computer is patched”. You can have the first without the second.
The other thing worth saying plainly: the risk from an unpatched Windows 10 machine is not that it stops working tomorrow. It is that it accumulates. Every month that passes without patches adds another known flaw that will never be fixed on that machine.
Keeps you patched until October 2027 with no disruption. Sensible if the machine does what you need and you would rather not change anything yet. This is the right answer far more often than people expect.
Free, supported, and the best outcome if your PC qualifies. Check the BIOS first, as below, because a lot of machines qualify once TPM is switched on. Full security features, no watermark, nothing to work around.
It works. You give up the hardware security Windows 11 is designed around, and Microsoft's line is that unsupported machines are not entitled to updates. Fine for a spare or a media PC. Think harder about the computer you bank on.
The right answer when the PC is genuinely old and would need money spending on it anyway. It is the wrong answer when the only problem was a BIOS setting, which is why it is worth checking before anybody sells you a new computer.
Windows 11 requires a TPM, a small security chip. Most machines from roughly 2016 onwards have one built into the processor. On a great many of them it is switched off in the BIOS by default, so Microsoft's compatibility check reports the PC as unsupported when it is not.
It is called fTPM on AMD systems and PTT on Intel ones. Turn it on, run the check again, and the official free upgrade often becomes available.
If going into the BIOS is not something you fancy doing, that is completely reasonable and it is a five minute job for somebody who does it regularly. An easier first step: look up your exact make and model online, because manufacturers publish whether a machine is Windows 11 eligible.
This one point is the difference between spending nothing and spending several hundred pounds, which is why it is worth checking before you are sold anything.
Business Extended Security Updates are priced per device and the cost doubles each year, and to join in year two or three you must pay for the years before it. Over the full three years that is roughly £400 a machine, which for most small businesses is money better spent on a replacement that is not on borrowed time.
I would also not run an unsupported Windows 11 install on a machine used for business or for anything sensitive. The hardware security you give up is exactly the part that matters most on those machines. See business IT support if you need a hand working out which of your machines actually need doing.
It is not receiving Windows security patches unless you have enrolled in Extended Security Updates. Microsoft extended consumer ESU, and you can enrol at any point until the programme ends on 12 October 2027. Antivirus definition updates continue separately, but they are a different thing: definitions spot known malware, they do not close a hole in Windows itself.
Standard support ended on 14 October 2025. Consumer Extended Security Updates now run until 12 October 2027. A lot of coverage still quotes October 2026, which was correct before Microsoft extended it in June 2026.
Often not. On a great many machines the only requirement that fails is TPM, and it is simply switched off in the BIOS. It is called fTPM on AMD systems and PTT on Intel. Switch it on, run the check again, and plenty of PCs suddenly qualify for the official free upgrade with full security features and no workaround.
Yes, and it works. You give up the hardware security Windows 11 is built around, and Microsoft's position is that unsupported machines are not entitled to updates. That is a reasonable trade on a spare or a media PC. I would think much harder about it on the computer you do your banking on.
Get a backup done. Far more people lose their photos during an upgrade than ever lose them to a virus, and it is the one step that makes every other option recoverable.
Sometimes, and you should get an honest answer rather than a sales one. If a machine is eight years old and needs work anyway, the money is better spent on a replacement. If it is a decent PC where only TPM was switched off, replacing it would be a waste.
Not sure where your machine stands? It is a phone call and it costs nothing, including if the answer is that you do not need to do anything yet. Get in touch.
A good deal of what is above was sharpened by a back and forth with Computer Guy Dunstable, who had written his own piece on what the end of Windows 10 actually means and put it in front of a local group. We came at it from slightly different angles, disagreed on a couple of points in public, and the result is more useful than either version was on its own.
The figures on business Extended Security Updates are his, and so is the conclusion that once you have paid for three years of them you are most of the way to the price of a machine that is not on borrowed time. He is right on both counts, and that section exists because he worked it out first.
He also holds two positions I did not cover and should have. He will not install Windows 11 on an unsupported machine used for business or for anything sensitive, and he refuses remote access outright. Both are stricter than most people in this trade, and both are held for the right reasons.
He has been fixing home computers for over twenty years, a lot of it in Luton, and built his first one in 1980. If you are Dunstable way and would rather deal with someone closer to home, he is worth knowing about.
Thank you for the sanity checking. Two people arguing about the detail where everyone can see it is usually how the rest of us end up with the right answer, and it beats either of us simply asserting it.
Tell me what is playing up, or send me your web address. You get back one page: what is slow, what is insecure, and what Google cannot see. If the answer is that you do not need me, I will say so.