Windows 10 end of life: what your hardware refresh actually looks like

Microsoft ended standard support for Windows 10 on 14 October 2025. No more security patches, no more bug fixes, through the normal update channels. Roughly two-thirds of enterprises had completed their migration by that date, but plenty of organisations, especially larger ones with specialised line-of-business software, are still working through it.

Why can't you just upgrade in place?

Windows 11's hardware baseline is the sticking point. Devices without TPM 2.0 or a supported CPU generation don't qualify for an in-place upgrade at all, which means a real chunk of any older fleet needs replacing rather than reimaging. Most business-grade PCs bought in the last few years are Windows 11-ready out of the box; the risk is concentrated in older, longer-tail hardware that's easy to lose track of.

What does a refresh project actually need to answer?

• Which devices are still on Windows 10 and which of those are even eligible for an in-place Windows 11 upgrade.
• Which devices need full replacement because they fail the TPM 2.0 or CPU requirement.
• Who currently holds each device, so replacements can be scheduled without chasing people down.
• What happens to the retired hardware afterwards: wiped and resold, kept as spares, or formally disposed of.

Every one of those questions is an asset-register question before it's a deployment question. A refresh planned against a register that's actually reconciled with what Intune and Autopilot report avoids the worst version of this project: ordering new laptops for people who already quietly got one and missing the ones who didn't.