You now have 30 days, Microsoft has just warned 600 million Windows users, before you lose “protections from the latest security threats.” This deadline has been coming for some time, but now it’s almost here. Don’t leave it too late.
We’re talking Windows 10 and the impending end-of-life for the most popular version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous operating system. The deadline date is October 14. Microsoft has confirmed October’s security update a week or so before that will be the last.
“As always,” Microsoft says “we recommend that you update your devices to the latest version of Windows 11.” For half or more of the 600 million users still on Windows 10, that might be possible. But hundreds of millions of Windows users can’t upgrade. Their PCs don’t have the prerequisite hardware to meet the Windows 11 upgrade test.
Take this deadline seriously. You should not run a Windows PC that is ineligible for security updates. It leaves you exposed to all new exploits and threats at exactly the wrong time. Actively exploited Windows threats are detected almost monthly. And so if you can’t update or upgrade, you should power down. Do not use an unsupported OS.
ESET’s Jake Moore warns “out of date operating systems can be left vulnerable to attack as criminals will look for any vulnerabilities that aren’t patched and target people’s data on their devices. When computers are left without patch management from Microsoft, they miss out on all the latest security updates which would keep them protected.”
We’re now inside that 30 day window, and the warnings are coming. You can expect a relentless train of articles, messages, popups and emails for the next four weeks.
If your PC is ineligible for Windows 11 and you won’t buy a new PC, you must check the Windows Update panel for an “Enroll Now” button. This lets you opt into a 12-month extended support update (ESU) for free, if you save your PC settings to OneDrive.
There is another option. Maybe. The Flyby11 workaround to install Windows 11 on incompatible PCs appears to be making a comeback. As spotted by XDA Developers, the now re-named “Flyoobe returned after GitHub’s accidental abuse flag was lifted — the project was restored and is now back online.”
Earlier in the year it seemed all such workarounds were being shut down, and Microsoft warned users “if you installed Windows 11 on a device not meeting Windows 11 system requirements, Microsoft recommends you roll back to Windows 10 immediately.”
You need to be fairly green-fingered to apply the Flyby11 workaround, and it will be too much for most users. But at a minimum, if you intend to stick with Windows 1o for any reason, ensure you grab that ESU when it’s available, and do so by October 13.
“It is important to make sure computers are set to auto update their operating system,” Moore says, “but when they are at their end of life, it is vital that they are updated to the latest windows operating system to stay protected from the latest threats.”
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