So much for that promise.

You know, the main one Microsoft made six years back when it told customers that Windows 10 was “the final version of Windows” they’d see.

Instead, Windows 10 will end also as promised by Microsoft -, our confusion on the contradictory claims – in late 2025 hence, its 10-year lifecycle exactly like its OS antecedents, replaced by the next-in-line numeric and numeral label. Hail Windows 11.

Windows is dead. Long live Windows. Or put another real way, identical to it ever was .

Though, not quite. Although details remain sketchy somewhat, Windows 11 will not be a precise copy of Windows 10, renamed. Or renumbered.

We’ve collected a number of the salient points about Windows 11, the people enterprise IT admins will most need to find out. Later, we’ll be back with an increase of about Windows 11, Windows 10 and their commercial customers.

Peaceful coexistence?

Microsoft may previously have implied it, but it’s now confirmed: For a while, both Windows 10 and Windows 11 will undoubtedly be in play. “As you make the proceed to Windows 11, we will continue to give you support as you utilize Windows 10,” wrote Wangui McKelvey, general manager with the Microsoft 365 team, in a June 24 post to an organization blog .

Quite simply, as Windows 7 was to Windows 10, so will Windows 10 be to Windows 11. Both will receive monthly security updates, the sign of Microsoft’s support policies.

Need more proof? “Windows 10 and Windows 11 are made to coexist,” Microsoft said Thursday in its opening documentation on Windows 11 .

Windows 10, until 2025

here

As Microsoft before said, Windows 10 will exit support Oct. 14, 2025 , or in four years, three change and months.

The entire year there will be considered a feature upgrade later in, Microsoft said, labeling it 21H2 . It’ll come with the typical 30 months of support on devices running Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Education (but only 1 . 5 years for several others). Windows 10 21H2, then, per year previously Home/Pro will retire in the spring of 2024 on Enterprise/Education but.

To this true point, Microsoft have not altered the Windows 10 support lifecycle, therefore the 30-month and 18- periods stay in place. Microsoft’s changed the support timeline for individual feature upgrades before – it lengthened several through the COVID-19 pandemic, for example – and may again do so.

However, Microsoft didn’t say whether additional Windows 10 feature upgrades will be offered after 21H2. As Computerworld explained earlier this month , Microsoft must issue additional refreshes following the one this fall probably. Based on how Microsoft tweaks support for these final feature upgrades, or whether it monkeys with the lifecycles at all, the firm may need to issue several upgrades to 10, up to 24H1 for Home and Pro perhaps, also to 22H2 for Enterprise and Education up.

The choice? Stretching Enterprise/Education support on, say, 21H2 by a supplementary 18 months in order that its end date matches the Oct. 14, 2025, demise of Windows 10 overall.

More of what matters … support

During the last six years, Windows 10 changed support greater than a toddler changed its mind often. So it was no real surprise when Microsoft messed with support since it introduced Windows 11.

Nonetheless it did so in a great way.

• • Windows 11 Windows and Home 11 Pro will undoubtedly be supported for two years, from 18 up.

• • Windows 11 Windows and Enterprise 11 Education will receive support for 3 years, from 30 up.

This noticeable change can do several things. First, the demise of year-and-a-half (1 . 5 years) and two-and-a-half-years (30 months) of support can make it easier to find out when that support ends. Secondly, the added support should let more customers run confirmed upgrade longer , meaning overall fewer disruptive upgrades.

Finally, Windows is annual

At the same time, Microsoft will drop Windows 10’s twice-a-year upgrade cadence and replace it with a once-yearly tempo for Windows 11. The only real feature upgrade will launch in each year’s second half. November figure somewhere within mid-October and early, the overall release window for 10’s second-half upgrade.

“We’ve also heard from a lot of you an annual update is most effective for you personally, and a simplified servicing plan helps it be simpler to deploy,” contended McKelvey.

Absolutely. Too bad it took years of complaining before Microsoft woke and smelled that coffee up.

64-bit only

Windows 11 should come only in a 64-bit edition, unlike Windows 10, which includes been obtainable in both 64-bit and 32- versions.

32-bit applications shall continue steadily to run and focus on Windows 11, but devices with a 32-bit processor shall not have the ability to install the operating-system. That shouldn’t be a lot of a burden, since those CPUs fell by the wayside ten years and more ago.

Free

Customers running Windows 10 under a legal license can proceed to Windows 11 cost-free. So far as Microsoft’s concerned, Windows 11 is another feature upgrade for windows 10 simply.

“Microsoft 365 licenses offering Windows 10 licenses will enable you to run Windows 11 on supported devices,” Microsoft said on its support site . “When you have a volume license, it shall equally cover Windows 11 and Windows 10 devices before and after upgrade.”

Unlike the free Windows 7-to-10 upgrade offer Microsoft extended in 2015, there is absolutely no right time period limit on the 10-to-11 deal, at least first. (These qualifiers are tiresome, but necessary; Microsoft appears to change the tune a lot more than most large software developers often.)

Same servicing tools

“Upgrading to Windows 11 is comparable to going for a Windows 10 feature update,” asserted Microsoft’s McKelvey. “The familiar management experiences you have set up today – like Microsoft Endpoint Manager, cloud configuration, Windows Update for Business … of tomorrow as you integrate Windows 11 into your estate – will support your environment.”

Current servicing tools will continue to work with 11 because they do 10 just, the company pledged. Windows 10 Home and unmanaged windows 10 Pro devices shall draw monthly updates through windows Update. Enterprise IT administrators can ask Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), Windows Update for Business (WUfB), Endpoint Manager’s Configuration Manager, Microsoft’s Intune along with other deployment and maintenance software and services. (Exceptions and caveats  have been completely posted here .)

Similarly, Windows Insider will be the foundation of early usage of windows 11, with the first release slated for in a few days from the program’s Dev channel. A Beta channel release shall follow, Microsoft said, “later come early july.”