Plan Now To Replace All Your Old PCs by 2025

Windows 10 reaches End Of Life on October 14, 2025, ten years after its release. At that point no new security updates will be released, and all PCs should cease using Windows 10.

As we've written before, Windows 11 requires additional security features not found in older PCs, as well as higher minimum hardware requirements. As of this writing, approximately 40% of PCs under ITS TeamCare will not support Windows 11 and need to be replaced.

Generally speaking, PCs bought after 2017 should be compatible. PCs from 2017 and earlier will be 8 years old in 2025 and should be replaced by then anyway. Clients with ITS TeamCare receive a PC breakdown in our periodic review sessions. As a rough estimate, divide the number of older PCs in your company by 24 months, and that is the number of PCs per month for which to budget. Of course, that rate of "PCs per month" will increase over time as months pass without replacing a PC.

PCs built after 2017 may be able to turn on some of these extra features in their BIOS (pre-boot hardware sequence), allowing them to upgrade to Windows 11. ITS can check the BIOS settings when on site, or we can talk clients through it over the phone, though often each motherboard model's BIOS is different.

Microsoft also recently announced a return to a three-year release cadence for Windows, meaning Windows 12 is due in 2024. To date Microsoft has not announced official hardware requirements for Windows 12.

August 2023

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