The latest version of Windows 10 will be the last, with no new feature updates coming to the operating system.
The most recent 22H2 release — which rolled out in October 2022 — will be the “final version” of Windows 10, said Jason Leznek, Microsoft principal product manager for Windows, in a blog post Thursday. Microsoft will continue to support all editions of Windows 10 with monthly security updates as planned until its end of life date Oct. 14, 2025, with Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) releases receiving support beyond that date.
Windows 10 remains popular with users, still accounting for 73% of Windows desktop devices globally, according to StatCounter GlobalStats. That compares with 21% for Windows 11, which arrived in late 2021.
Many businesses are already planning for a move to Windows 11, said Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner, but the end of feature upgrades to Windows 10 may help encourage slow movers in certain sectors towards the latest operating system.
“Organizations are already down the path of migrating to Windows 11 in the second half of this year, going into 2024. So the plans are already there for most larger organizations,” said Atwal. “Sometimes governments and banks can be laggards so this might be a bit of a push for them: that you look at the roadmap and see you might have to plan for this sooner rather than later.”
The pace of changes and new features in Windows 10 has slowed in recent years as Microsoft has shifted its focus to Windows 11, which is also as version 22H2. The small number of changes that arrived with Windows 11 22H2 included tweaks to the Start Menu, Task Manager, and File Explorer.