windows 11 upgrade

For most Windows 11 upgrades, use Windows Update first, use the Windows 11 Installation Assistant when an eligible PC has not yet been offered the upgrade but you want to install it on the device you are currently using, and use installation media or an ISO when you need repair, repeatability...

Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, leaving many older PCs without free monthly security fixes unless they move to Windows 11, enroll in Extended Security Updates, or switch to another computing platform. That deadline has turned a once-theoretical upgrade...

Microsoft says Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 moved out of normal support when Windows 10 reached end of support on October 14, 2025, but Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, and Visio will continue receiving security updates on Windows 10 until October 10, 2028. The headline is not that...

Microsoft showed some Windows 10 users full-screen upgrade prompts in late 2024 urging them to buy Copilot+ PCs and move to Windows 11 before Windows 10’s free support deadline of October 14, 2025. The ads were not a routine notification buried in Settings; they were an operating-system-level...

Microsoft ended mainstream Windows 10 support on October 14, 2025, but consumers can still buy time through Extended Security Updates until October 13, 2026, while experimenting with cleanup, storage upgrades, lighter browsing, Linux, or narrower roles for aging PCs. That makes the post-support...

PCMag Australia’s latest Windows 11 upgrade guide explains how Windows 10 users can move to Windows 11 for free using Microsoft’s official tools, and how unsupported PCs can bypass hardware checks with Rufus-created installation media. The practical advice is familiar, but the timing is what...

Microsoft still lets many Windows 10 users move to Windows 11 without buying a new license, using Windows Update, the Installation Assistant, installation media, or an ISO, while unsupported PCs can often be upgraded with tools such as Rufus that bypass Microsoft’s hardware checks. That is the...

PCMag’s guide to upgrading a Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 for free, including unsupported machines, lands at a moment when Windows 10 is already past its October 14, 2025 support deadline and still holds roughly 28.5 percent of Windows version share worldwide as of April 2026. The practical...

Valve’s April 2026 Steam Hardware & Software Survey shows roughly a quarter of Windows gamers still running Windows 10 months after Microsoft ended mainstream support on October 14, 2025, even as Windows 11 dominates Steam and Microsoft’s paid Extended Security Updates bridge runs through...

Windows 10’s support deadline has turned a routine operating system sunset into a mass migration problem, and the smartest path forward depends on hardware, budget, and how much change you can tolerate. Microsoft’s own guidance now makes the stakes plain: Windows 10 reached end of support on...

Google’s ChromeOS Flex push is more than a clever recycling story: it is a direct challenge to the expensive, messy Windows 11 upgrade cycle now facing millions of Windows 10 holdouts. With Windows 10 support having ended on October 14, 2025, Microsoft is steering customers either toward Windows...

Windows 10 support ended on October 14, 2025, which makes the upgrade question less about “if” and more about how to move with the least pain. Microsoft now states plainly that Windows 10 no longer receives free security updates, technical assistance, or feature updates, and recommends either...

Microsoft has quietly made a streamlined upgrade path available for Windows 11’s latest feature update: a small, dedicated Windows 11 Installation Assistant 25H2 executable is now listed on Microsoft’s Download Center, giving users and administrators a simple, supported way to force an in‑place...

Microsoft set a hard deadline: Windows 10’s vendor-supplied mainstream support ended on October 14, 2025, and while your PC will still boot and run, that calendar cut changes the risk, compatibility, and support equations in ways that compound every day you wait...

Microsoft’s countdown for Windows 10 is no longer theoretical: the company’s formal lifecycle calendar closed on October 14, 2025, and millions of households across the UK and around the world now face a clear set of choices — upgrade, buy time, or accept growing cyber risk. This piece examines...

A Windows 10 user who says they left their PC to take a shower and returned to find Windows 11 installed has tapped into a deep and recurring anxiety about control, consent, and the mechanics of system updates — and the circumstances behind that single anecdote reveal a mix of automated...

A Windows 10 user says they left their PC for a shower and returned to find Windows 11 installed — and the short answer is: yes, under very specific conditions Windows can upgrade itself without an explicit “OK, install now” click from the user, but the truth behind these incidents is a mix of...

A Windows 10 user’s account that Microsoft “auto-installed” Windows 11 on an idle PC has reignited a long‑running argument over update transparency, consent, and the technical mechanisms that let feature upgrades proceed without a clear, affirmative user action. Background Since the Windows 10...

A Windows 10 user came back from a shower to find their PC had upgraded itself to Windows 11 — despite having declined the offer repeatedly — and the story has since become a lightning rod for anxiety about how and when Microsoft moves people between major Windows releases. (pcworld.com)...

If you ran the PC Health Check app only to be told “This PC can’t run Windows 11,” don’t panic — your machine may be perfectly capable of running Windows 11 after a single, fixable configuration change: converting your system disk from the legacy MBR partition style to GPT and switching your...