Microsoft’s new update warning for millions of Windows users could be an alarming taste of things a to come. As the debate continues use as to what happens next year for hundreds of millions of Windows 10 users, and how will the tech giant push them over to Windows 11, could it be something akin to this?
As reported by Neowin, Microsoft has just notified users “about the future state of the new Teams client on older Windows 10 and 11 versions. Soon, the app will start nagging users to update their operating systems to remain supported, and in a few months, Teams will stop working altogether.”
Microsoft says “this is to ensure that users have the latest updates, capabilities, performance enhancements, security features, and service compatibility. A version that is too far out of date will become incompatible with the service and the Desktop client will be blocked until the OS is updated.”
Getting to the specifics, users can expect to see warning banners a fortnight or so from now, before Teams will fail to load on older Windows 1o operating systems (older then version 21H2) from January 15, 2025. Older Mac systems (macOS 11 or older) and the specialist Windows 11 LTCS will stop working later next year.
This is an interesting twist for two reasons. First, it is another part of Microsoft’s expansive arsenal to push users to upgrade—targeting core apps on the OS rather than just the OS itself, and second it’s very focused on enterprise given the Teams angle. While enterprise customers will have more extended support options to hand, the risk there is arguably greater given the corporate malware threat.
Windows 10 21H2 ended support in June—just three months ago. Is this the kind of short time horizon other Windows 10 users can expect after October next year?
We saw the same theme with Microsoft pushing an internal case study on the benefits of Windows 11, its combination of software and hardware, and the added resilience all this brings within a corporate environment. Windows 11, the company’s internal advocated explained, “makes secure-by-default viable thanks to a combination of modern hardware and software. This ready out-of-the-box protection enables us to create a new baseline internally across Microsoft, one that level sets our enterprise to be more secure for a hybrid workplace.”
With little more than a year to run before Windows 10’s unpopular end-of-life and a support guillotine for millions of users caught with unsuitable hardware, the stakes are high to push the massive 70% of Windows users not yet on Windows 11 to make the leap. The likely support nightmare that will otherwise ensure will be dire.
