Popular antivirus maker warns Windows 10 users to 'switch to Windows 11 immediately' (or Linux)

With the new year having arrived, the prospect of Windows 10 support running out has become more concrete - it happens in October 2025 - and that has prompted ESET to issue a warning not to hang around in mulling your upgrade path from Microsoft's older OS.

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Don't get caught out by scammers when Windows 10 runs out of road for support (Image Credit: Elisa Ventur - Unsplash)

The Slovakian security firm - which makes a popular antivirus app, and other security software besides - penned a blog post on the urgency to move away from Windows 10, as spotted by Neowin.

Thorsten Urbanski, Director of Marketing and Communication at ESET DACH (based in Essen, Germany), tells us:

"It's five minutes to twelve to avoid a security fiasco for 2025. We strongly advise all users not to wait until October, but to switch to Windows 11 immediately or choose an alternative operating system if their device cannot be updated to the latest Windows operating system."

Urbanski warns:

"The situation is more dangerous than when support for Windows 7 ended in early 2020. Even before the official date, at the end of 2019, only around 20% of users were still using Windows 7. Over 70% were already using the new Windows 10. The current situation is extremely dangerous. Cyber criminals know these numbers very well and are just waiting for the day when support ends."

As for what action you should be considering taking, the blog post further advises:

"ESET recommends switching to Windows 11 as quickly as possible. Alternatively, a Linux distribution can also be a good option, especially for older hardware."

Don't hang about at this stage of the game

We agree that you probably shouldn't hang around in terms of upgrading away from Windows 10. It's something we're planning on doing imminently on our main PC, on which we've stuck with the older operating system up until now. (Mainly because of the interface quirks with Windows 11, which were plentiful when the OS first launched - but have mainly been resolved now).

The move has to be made, as ESET points out, so you may as well get on with it - though we wouldn't blame you for waiting a bit longer to pick up the 24H2 update, while Microsoft irons out some of the many bugs that have hit this latest version.

If you upgrade now, you'll likely land on 23H2 anyway, as 24H2 is not at the stage where it's being widely offered to PCs (though that'll come soon enough, no doubt).

There is one other option for Windows 10 users, aside from heading to Windows 11, or switching entirely away to Linux - and that's paying for continued support from Microsoft.

For the first time, the software giant is offering this as an option to consumers (normally this is a choice that's only open to businesses). It will, of course, cost you, but it might be a price some folks are willing to pay. There are those who are ruled out of Windows 11 due to the hardware requirements of the newest OS, either the stipulation for TPM 2.0, or because their PC has an older processor.

At the very least, if you're not going to upgrade soon, you need to start exploring your options. For those who are told by Microsoft's PC Health Check app that they can't upgrade to Windows 11 due to TPM support, it could be as simple as heading into the BIOS and enabling TPM 2.0 to overcome this hurdle in an easy fashion. But failing that, you're looking at a more complex upgrade, which is exactly why you should start planning now, and don't fall into the trap of procrastinating for much longer.