Unless Microsoft doesn’t exist already done kindness obviously you want to upgrade your Windows 10 PC this yearthe company announced that it will stop supporting Office apps on the older OS in October.

In one blog postMicrosoft has confirmed that to continue using the Microsoft 365 suite of apps on your machine, you’ll need to “upgrade to Windows 11” on October 14—the same day that support will also end for Windows 10. And in many cases , upgrading to Windows 11 will also require upgrading your machine.

That’s because Windows 11 is a bit heavy hardware requirements that millions of older machines cannot meet, and Microsoft has confirmed that it has no intention of moving those requirements.

It is so confident of the move that Yusef Mehdi, the chief marketing officer of Microsoft declared 2025 as “the year of Windows 11 PC Refresh.”

“If the current PC needs a refresh, or it has security vulnerabilities that require the latest protection supported by the hardware, now is the time to move on to a new Windows 11 PC,” he wrote to another. blog postearlier this month.

It’s fair to say that some of the machines that don’t meet the minimum hardware requirements may almost 10 years oldand could do with an upgrade anyway. But it’s also true that the majority of Windows 10 machines out there—data published by Statcounter in December 2024 suggests that there will be almost twice as many PCs running Windows 10 than Windows 11—meaning that migrating them all before the end of support is unlikely.

There is some good news for any Windows 10 users hoping to keep and still use their Office applications. Like the operating system itself, Microsoft 365 will not fall off the cliff and stop working on October 14. Microsoft confirmed that Office apps “will continue to function as before,” but may have “performance and reliability issues over time” as security and feature updates stop arriving.

If this is your tactic, it might be worth considering Microsoft’s Extended Security Updatesoffered to consumers for the first time. Users can pay $30 to keep their PC safe with updates for one year, while businesses can protect their machines for up to three. This won’t prevent your apps from disappearing, of course, but at least it will help keep the bad ones at bay while you plan your next move.