Windows 11 was announced back in June 2021 and began rolling out to the public on October 5 of the same year. Since then, the operating system has received multiple major updates including the Windows 11 2022 Update (version 22H2), and Moment updates in October 2022, February 2023, and June 2023. With numerous versions of Windows 11 now available, Microsoft has announced that it is ending support for the original version of the operating system soon.
As spotted by Neowin, the original release of Windows 11, that is version 21H2, will reach end of support on October 10, 2023. This is over two years after the initial release of the operating system. The phasing out of support isn't surprising, Microsoft had already documented that Home and Pro versions of Windows 11 are supported for 24 months after initial release while Enterprise SKUs get 36 months of servicing.
As such, the Windows 11 SKUs affected by this October 10 deadline are as follows:
- Windows 11 Home, version 21H2
- Windows 11 Pro, version 21H2
- Windows 11 Pro for Workstations, version 21H2
- Windows 11 Pro Education, version 21H2
Following October 10, the aforementioned versions of Windows 11 will not receive any security updates, which makes them undesirable configurations for production environments, and perhaps even daily use, considering that they will be more vulnerable to malware and other security threats. Customers who do want continued security updates have been recommended to upgrade to the latest version of Windows 11, which is currently version 22H2.
The next major version of Windows 11 that you could consider upgrading to eventually is version 23H2, which is expected later this year. It will pack tons of new features including Copilot integration, a modernized File Explorer, native 7z and RAR support, and Paint with dark mode, among other things. Find out more about all the upcoming changes and new capabilities here.