Still on Windows 10? ESU year two and your options (October 2026)

Most Brisbane businesses didn't notice anything change on 14 October 2025. The computers still turned on, Windows 10 still worked. A year on, plenty of offices still have a Windows 10 machine or two, and the cost of keeping them safe has just gone up.

What changed in October 2026

Extended Security Updates (ESU), Microsoft's paid way to keep getting patches for Windows 10, moved into its second year on 14 October 2026. Three things follow for a business:

• The price doubled. Microsoft's published business price is US$61 per device for year one, US$122 for year two and US$244 for year three. Local pricing through a reseller differs, but the doubling holds.
• You can't skip a year. ESU is cumulative. A PC that never had year one now needs year one and year two paid together to get current patches.
• Home-style ESU has finished. The low-cost consumer option only ever covered one year, ending 13 October 2026. A business PC that was relying on it is now unpatched.

If you still have Windows 10 machines, the question is no longer "should we plan for this" but "is each of these PCs worth another US$122 or more this year". For most, the answer is no.

What does “end of life” actually mean?

Microsoft stopped releasing free security updates for Windows 10 on 14 October 2025. The software keeps running, but it no longer gets the monthly patches that fix newly discovered security holes.

Think of it like a building where they've stopped fixing the locks. Everything looks fine today, but every new weakness that gets found from here on stays open. Attackers know this, and unsupported systems are an easy target.

For a small business, the risk shows up in three ways:

• Growing exposure to malware and ransomware as fresh vulnerabilities go unpatched
• Cyber-insurance headaches - many policies now expect supported, patched systems, and a claim can be knocked back if you're running software that's past end of life
• Compliance and client trust - if you handle customer data or work with larger companies, "we're still on Windows 10" is a hard conversation

None of this means panic. It means Windows 10 has quietly moved from "fine" to "borrowed time", and it's worth a plan.

How do I check if my PCs are affected?

Quicker than you'd think. On each machine:

• Click Start, type "winver", press Enter. If it says Windows 10, that PC is affected.
• To see if it can move to Windows 11, open Settings then Windows Update and look for the PC Health Check prompt, or run Microsoft's free PC Health Check app.

The catch is Windows 11's hardware requirements. It needs a reasonably modern processor and a security chip called TPM 2.0. Most business PCs bought from around 2019 onward will qualify. Older ones often won't - and that's the honest fork in the road for a lot of Brisbane offices.

If checking a room full of computers sounds tedious, that's the sort of thing I sort in one pass.

What are my realistic options?

There's no single right answer - it depends on the age of your gear and your budget. Three sensible paths:

• Upgrade to Windows 11 - free on hardware that supports it. Best value if your PCs are recent enough. The upgrade keeps your files and programs in place.
• Extended Security Updates (ESU) - Microsoft's paid stopgap that buys extra security patches for Windows 10. Now in year two, it costs twice what it did, and it ends for good in October 2028. Worth it only as a short bridge for a machine you genuinely can't replace yet - it's a breather, not a destination.
• Replace ageing devices - for PCs that can't run Windows 11 (and are probably slowing your team down anyway), a new machine with Windows 11 already on it is often the cheaper move once you count the lost time.

Most businesses land on a mix: upgrade what can be upgraded, replace the oldest few, and only use ESU to cover the gap while you do it. With year two pricing, a PC that can't run Windows 11 is usually better replaced than renewed.

How do I do this without disrupting the business?

The good news is you don't have to do it all at once, and you shouldn't try to. A staged approach keeps everyone working:

• Take stock first - list every PC, its Windows version, and whether it can run Windows 11. One spreadsheet, one afternoon.
• Prioritise by risk - anything handling customer data, payments or email goes first.
• Do it in small batches - upgrade or swap a couple of machines at a time, ideally outside busy hours, so there's always a working fallback.
• Back up before you touch anything - non-negotiable, and worth checking your backups actually restore.
• Sort the little things - printers, accounting software, that one legacy app the business depends on. These are usually fine on Windows 11, but they're worth confirming before you commit.

Done this way, it's a series of small, boring, well-planned steps - which is exactly what you want from IT.

Stuck on the audit step?

If listing every PC and what it can run sounds like the job that never reaches the top of the pile, send it my way - with the right tools it's an afternoon's work, and you get back a simple list: keep, upgrade, replace. From there the plan mostly writes itself.

Or start even smaller: run "winver" on your own machine right now. If it says Windows 10, that's your sign.