Microsoft’s free Windows 10 extension won’t save your business fleet

Microsoft has quietly handed Windows 10 another year of free security updates — the consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program now runs to October 2027 instead of 2026, as reported by BleepingComputer. Handy if you’ve got a Windows 10 laptop at home. Not the win it looks like if you’re running a business.

Read the fine print and the free extension explicitly excludes devices joined to an Active Directory domain, joined to Microsoft Entra (Azure AD), or managed through an MDM — which is exactly how most business fleets are set up. The machines your staff use every day almost certainly don’t qualify for the free deal. For managed devices, the commercial ESU meter keeps running: Year 1 to 14 October 2026, then Year 2 and Year 3 at roughly double each time — about US$61, then US$122, then US$244 per device, or US$427 all up over three years (Microsoft prices ESU in USD; your reseller bills the AUD equivalent). That’s a per-machine tax for standing still.

With the Australian financial year just ticked over, now’s the sensible time to budget for this rather than get caught out in October. Get an inventory of which machines can actually run Windows 11 — the TPM 2.0 and CPU requirements rule out a lot of older hardware — which need replacing, and which genuinely need paid ESU as a short bridge. Treat ESU as a runway, not a destination: every year you delay costs more and leaves staff on an operating system that’s a bigger target the longer it sits outside mainstream support.

Not sure how many of your PCs are Windows 11-ready? A quick fleet audit as part of managed IT support will tell you exactly where you stand and what it’ll cost.

What Australian businesses should do before October 2025

Microsoft’s standard support for Windows 10 ends 14 October 2025. Any device still running Windows 10 without commercial ESU stops receiving security patches from that date. Three paths forward:

Migrate to Windows 11. Most hardware purchased after 2019 meets the requirements: a compatible CPU, TPM 2.0, and 64GB of storage. Run Microsoft’s PC Health Check tool across your fleet now to identify which machines qualify and which need replacing. This is the most cost-effective long-term option for most businesses.

Enrol in commercial ESU. This buys time, not a solution. At US$427 per device over three years, any fleet larger than a handful of machines makes migration the cheaper call — and you still end up migrating eventually. The cost per device roughly doubles each year, so early migration saves more.

Replace ageing hardware. If machines are too old for Windows 11 and commercial ESU doesn’t make financial sense, replacing devices now avoids the extended support cost entirely and reduces your security risk in the process.

All IT manages Windows migrations for businesses across Sydney, the Northern Beaches, Central West NSW, Melbourne and Brisbane. If you need a clear picture of your fleet before the October deadline, speak with our team.