Until Microsoft did already made very much Make it clear that you want it Upgrade your Windows 10 PC this yearThe company has announced that it will stop supporting Office apps on older OSes from October.
In A Blog postMicrosoft has confirmed that to continue using the Microsoft 365 suite of apps on your machine, you’ll need to “upgrade to Windows 11” by October 14—the same day support for Windows 10 will also end. And in many cases, upgrading to Windows 11 will require upgrading your machine as well.
This is because Windows 11 has something more Hardware requirements That millions of old machines can’t meet, and Microsoft has already confirmed that it has no intention of lowering those prerequisites.
It’s so confident in the move that Youssef Mehdi, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, declared 2025 “the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh.”
“Whether an existing PC needs to be refreshed, or has security vulnerabilities that require the latest hardware-backed protection, now is the time to move forward with a new Windows 11 PC,” he wrote in another. Blog postearlier this month.
It is fair to say that some machines may not reach those minimum hardware requirements Close to 10 years oldAnd could probably do with an upgrade anyway. But it is also true that the absolute number of Windows 10 machines – data published by Statcounter December 2024 suggests that there will be almost twice as many PCs running Windows 10 as Windows 11 — meaning it’s impossible to replace them before support ends.
There’s some good news for any Windows 10 users hoping to keep and still use their Office apps. Just like an operating system, Microsoft 365 won’t fall off a mountain and stop working on October 14th. has confirmed that Office apps “will continue to work as before,” but that there may be “performance and reliability issues over time” as security and feature updates stop rolling out.
If that’s your move, it might be worth considering Microsoft’s extended security updateswhich is being offered to consumers for the first time. Consumers can pay $30 to keep their PCs protected with updates for one year, while businesses can protect their machines for up to three. This won’t prevent your apps from becoming outdated, of course, but at least it’ll help keep the crap out of the way while plotting your next move.
