Windows 10 End-of-Life / Upgrading to Windows 11

So what's all this about?

On October 14, 2025 Windows 10 is going to go End-of-Life...this means Microsoft will no longer be supporting it with needed security updates. Given that ~62% of all Windows computers worldwide are still running Windows 10, the IT community is seriously concerned that come October 15th hackers will start exploiting security faults in Win10 and do a lot of damage.

So what does this mean?

It means that by October 14th we want to make sure that Windows computers connected to the internet are running Windows 11.

I have a Windows 10 computer...what do I do?

The seemingly obvious fix for this is to upgrade the PC from Windows 10 to Windows 11, but there's a problem. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Microsoft has rigged Windows 11 so it will only install on computers that meet a "minimum hardware requirement", that being having a certain generation CPU or newer and containing a hardware security chip called a TPM.

How do I find out if my computer is capable of running Windows 11?

You need to install and run a utility provided my Microsoft that will tell you if your computer meets their minimum hardware requirements. Here's how.

1) Download and install this utility: https://www.cvs.rochester.edu/cvspriv/downloads/WindowsPCHealthCheckSetup.msi

Long story short, the cutoff between "upgradeable" and non-upgradeable" happened ***roughly*** in the middle of 2018.

If your Win10 PC can be upgraded, we'll need to get that done before October 14th. If your PC cannot be upgraded, you have a few options to choose from:

1) Replace the whole computer with a new one

2) If it's a desktop PC I built, we can replace just the needed components (this will necessitate a full rebuild of Windows & apps though)

3) You can eschew Windows and switch the PC over to running Linux (awesome no-cost option)

4) The computer can be disconnected from the network permanently