Unless Microsoft didn’t you have done it a lot clear that it wants you to upgrade your Windows 10 PC this year, the company has announced that it will stop supporting Office apps on the older OS come October.
In a blog post, Microsoft confirmed that in order to continue using the Microsoft 365 suite of apps on your device, “you’ll need to upgrade to Windows 11” on October 14—that day support will end for Windows 10. And in most cases, upgrading to Windows 11 will require to improve your machine again.
That’s because Windows 11 has very high hardware requirements that millions of older machines can’t meet, and Microsoft has already confirmed that it has no intention of releasing those requirements.
So confident is this move that Yusef Mehdi, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer has declared 2025 “the year of Windows 11 PC renewal.”
“Whether the current PC needs to be updated, or it has a security risk that requires the latest hardware-backed protection, now is the time to move forward with a new Windows 11 PC,” he wrote in another blog post, earlier this month.
It’s worth mentioning that some of the machines that won’t meet those minimum hardware requirements may be close to 10 years old, and could still do with an upgrade. But it is also true that the total number of Windows 10 machines out there—data published by Statcounter in December 2024 suggests that they are almost twice the number of PCs running Windows 10 than Windows 11—means replacing them all before the end of support is impossible.
There is good news for any Windows 10 users hoping to hang on and still use their Office apps. Like the operating system itself, Microsoft 365 will not fall off a cliff and stop working on October 14. Microsoft has confirmed that Office applications will “continue to work as before,” but there may be “performance and reliability issues over time.” ” as security and feature updates stop rolling in.
If this is your strategy, you may want to consider Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates, which are offered to consumers for the first time. Users can pay $30 to keep their PC protected with updates for a year, while businesses can protect their machines up to three times. It won’t prevent your apps from expiring, of course, but it will at least help keep the nasties out while you plan your next move.