Windows 10 has created a lot of buzz in 2025 because of the support end date in the month of October. It was launched 10 years ago, but if you have been with us for quite long then must had tried the technical preview. It was the 1st Windows that took security seriously in many terms and despite Windows 11's launch there are few PCs running the older version of Windows.
While it is not advised to run any older version of Operating System, specially an out of support version but Windows 11 has a special requirement for TPM. Many customers have installed Linux on their systems because of this reason, but what about you? Are you planning to do the same or will your system be part of the e-waste?
I have a test system that was running Windows 10 and later was upgraded to Windows 11 without any issues (Neither TPM error came nor any registry tweak was done). When my HDD crashed then I replaced it with SSD, followed by Windows 10 installation again as it was a test system. However, during last Christmas when again tried to upgrade to Windows 11 the following error came: "Your PC doesn't currently meet the minimum system requirements to run Windows 11".
Then I realized the hard requirement which came from Microsoft for the TPM devices, which wasn't there earlier. It would have been better if they would have kept it optional but Windows 10 already hit the usual lifespan of 10 years for Microsoft's general support. If you want to check the TPM availability on your system then type "tpm.msc" in the command prompt or run Window. You will see a screen as shown below, the same system was running Windows 11 properly couple of years ago, but now gets the error during upgrade as it doesn't have TPM.
I planned to install Ubuntu on the test system, but also noticed that now extended support is provided for another 1 year. If you have a system with good configuration which can't be used with Windows 11 then either you can switch to Linux or visit the update center to see the extended support as shown below:
Click next to check your eligibility
Click enroll to get the extended security updates through 13th October, 2026
Click done and now you have enough time to backup your data, and decide for your Next PC or you can switch this PC to desired flavor of Linux. We have covered a lot of Linux Installations on this blog to make it easy for you.
