Microsoft makes a ton of products and services, and every time it introduces a new one, it publishes a promised end-of-life date. Almost all of those dates fall on the second Tuesday of the month, and this month, there are a couple of versions of Windows 10 that are reaching the end of the line.
Windows 10 Home and Pro, version 20H2
Today, Windows 10 version 20H2 will get its last update, assuming you’re on Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. Obviously, it’s recommended that you move to something newer.
The nice thing is that it will be an easy update. In the 18 months since the lifecycle for Windows 10 version 20H2 began, there hasn’t been a full feature update. Upgrading to version 21H2 should only take a few minutes, because it’s just installing an enablement package.
The way that Windows 10 lifecycles have historically worked is that if you’re a consumer on Windows 10 Home or Pro, you get support for 18 months. Businesses would get 18 months of support from the spring update and 30 months from the fall update.
Windows 10 Enterprise and Education, version 1909
Windows 10 version 1909 is one of those that got 30 months of support for businesses, and that ends today. It’s actually a notable milestone, because it means that all of the supported versions for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education will be version 20H2 and up. That means that there will only be one cumulative update going out, since versions 20H2 and up are all the exact same bits, just separated by enablement packages.
Recently, Microsoft switched to an annual update cadence for Windows 10, matching what it already had introduced with Windows 11. The support lifecycle is different though. The Windows 10 fall update, which is the one that will live on, is going to continue to get 18 months of support for consumers and 30 months for businesses. Meanwhile, the annual updates for Windows 11 actually get 24 months for consumers and 36 months for businesses.
Version 20H2 of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, and version 1909 of Windows 10 Education and Windows 10 Enterprise, will get their latest updates today. Windows 10 will be supported in one form or another until at least October 2025.