After 7 years of launching Windows 10 for public use, Microsoft has announced that it will be removing Windows 10 Home and Pro downloads from its online store later this month. This means that from the 31st of January, 2022, Microsoft will stop offering Windows 10 Home and Pro for downloads on its website.
The announcement was made by Microsoft on Windows 10’s download page where the OS is still on sale for $139.00.
“January 31, 2023 will be the last day this Windows 10 download is offered for sale,” the announcement reads.
As an addendum to the announcement, Microsoft said that Windows 10 Home and Pro editions will still be supported, and will be receiving security updates till October 14, 2025.
“Windows 10 will remain supported with security updates that help protect your PC from viruses, spyware, and other malware until October 14, 2025,” Microsoft said.
Although Microsoft is ending consumer sales of Windows 10 Home and Pro editions on its web store, there are still a couple of other stores where people can download Windows 10 operating system from. One of such stores is Amazon, which offers the OEM version of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro on DVD for $109.99, and $146.99, respectively.
This announcement confirms that Microsoft is indeed moving forward from Windows 10, especially as the company has been pushing recommendations for Windows 11. Since the company released Windows 11, it has been trying to convince users to upgrade from Windows 11, however, this has been coming slower than the company expected.
Microsoft released Windows 10 in 2015, and the operating system has gone ahead to gain much popularity among Windows OS users, and becoming the most popular version of Windows, with a global market share of 67.95% in December 2022. The operating system followed Windows 8, which was widely criticized for removing the traditional Start menu and button that was present in Windows 7.
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Windows 11 on the other hand, was released in October 2021, and received decent acclaimed. Windows 11 has however, only been able to accrue 16.97% market share, according to StatCounter.