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Finally, the curtain has come down on Windows 10. Well, sort of. Although official support for Windows 10 officially ended yesterday, there are still numerous ways to receive critical security updates. Here are the options if you’re still running Windows 10 PCs inside your business.
Microsoft and the hand-rubbing PC firms probably won’t thank us for writing it, but continuing to use your Windows 10 PCs as normal is an option.
For the time being, and assuming you’ve kept those PCs updated, you’re no worse off than a company that’s already agreed to pay Microsoft for extended support. Security patches don’t arrive daily, so until the next monthly “Patch Tuesday” update (due mid-November) you’re as safe as you can be.
Even then, it’s hard to imagine that if some appalling zero-day flaw emerges that threatens the safety of hundreds of millions of Windows 10 PCs, Microsoft won’t make a patch available to all current users of the operating system. It’s done so before, with a 2017 patch for the WannaCry ransomware on Windows XP issued well after support ended in 2014.
That said, it is a gamble to continue running with even minor security flaws unpatched. And if your business/customer data is compromised on an unpatched PC, don’t expect customers or insurers to treat you sympathetically.
If you’ve got business-critical software that refuses to run on Windows 11, you could consider virtualisation (see below) or (if possible) taking measures such as removing the machine from the network to physically firewall it against attack.
If it’s stubborn software that refuses to run on Windows 11 that’s holding you back from upgrades, there are ways to run Windows 10 more safely on modern hardware.
Microsoft’s support documentation for the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) states that the updates are provided at no extra charge for customers running Windows 10 on Windows 365, the company’s cloud desktop offering, as well as Azure Virtual Desktop and Azure virtual machines, among other options.
In other words, you might be able to virtualise your Windows 10 environment, and benefit from both the performance gains and three years of security updates. However, there will of course be a cost to doing so – even a basic Windows 365 subscription designed to “run light productivity tools and web browsers” costs $31/£26.90 per user per month, so you may be better off paying for the ESUs on existing hardware.
The final option is to sign up for the ESUs.
Although not officially endorsed, many small businesses undoubtedly run on Windows SKUs intended for home not business use. Those machines can qualify for a year’s worth of free security updates by syncing your PC settings with Windows backup.
If you’re running the legitimate Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows 10 (note: you must be using version 22H2), you can pay Microsoft for updates, but prepare for a tough conversation with your CFO. Prices are pegged at $61 (£46) for the first year, but double in year two, and double again in year three.
The punitive pricing scale is clearly designed to shove you towards either upgrading to Windows 11 or upgrading your hardware, and it’s hard to make an economic argument for sitting tight for all three years of Windows 10 ESU updates when it will cost $427 (£319) in total.
Even if the end of Windows 10 support is the nudge you needed to upgrade your PC fleet, you don’t necessarily have to write off that old hardware.
If a PC doesn’t meet the requirements for Windows 11, you can still install a lightweight Linux distro such as Linux Mint or even ChromeOS Flex to give that hardware a second wind. If the PC is used for relatively lightweight duties (a PC for reception, for example, or a kiosk PC used to display information) that hardware may not have reached the end of life just yet. Far from it.
