Windows 10 support ended on October 14, 2025. If you took Microsoft up on the 1-year Extended Security Updates bridge it offered home users, that bridge runs out this October, just weeks from when this publishes. Either way, a decision you may have been postponing is now due. It’s smaller and calmer than the headlines made it sound.

What end of support actually means

Nothing happened to your computer last October 14, and nothing dramatic happens this October either. The machine keeps booting and your files stay put.

What ends is the patching. Security holes get found constantly, in every operating system. When a new one turns up in Windows 10, Microsoft no longer ships a fix. Think of a building where the locks stop getting changed. The doors still close and lock. But every month, more copies of working keys circulate, and none of them can ever be revoked.

How much that matters depends on what the machine touches. A computer that plays solitaire and stores recipes can coast for a good while. A computer you use for banking, email, taxes, or medical portals shouldn’t stay on an operating system nobody is defending anymore, because those accounts are exactly what attackers want.

Check whether Windows 11 is free for your machine

Before any money moves, find out whether your computer qualifies for the free upgrade. Open Settings > Windows Update and look for the eligibility notice, or download Microsoft’s PC Health Check app, which gives you a plain yes or no.

If the answer is yes, take the upgrade. It’s free, and your files and programs stay in place; most machines finish in an evening. Make sure you have a current backup first. That’s true of any major update, not a special warning about this one.

Plenty of machines come back with a no. Windows 11 requires security hardware that many 8-12-year-old machines don’t have. Unofficial workarounds float around online, but they leave you on an unsupported configuration, which recreates the exact problem you’re trying to get away from.

If it can’t upgrade: the honest replacement math

Our standing rule predates any Microsoft deadline: we recommend replacing a computer once it’s 5+ years old, or when a repair would cost more than about 30% of replacing it. A machine that can’t run Windows 11 is, almost by definition, well past the age line.

That’s also why we’d talk you out of spending real money to prop one up. A new drive in a 10-year-old computer that can never run a supported version of Windows is good money into a machine whose clock has run out. The full repair-or-replace math is in When should I replace my computer? if you want the longer version, but this particular case is unusually clear-cut.

What we handle end to end

Replacing a computer is really 2 jobs: choosing the right machine, then moving your life onto it. The moving is what people dread, and it’s the part we’ve built a flat price around.

When you buy the computer through us, setup is a fixed $400, with OneStop member discounts applied on top. We shop for a machine that fits how you actually use it, set it up ahead of time at our office, deliver it, transfer your data, install your software, and stay to answer every question before we leave. One service call, end to end.

Spelled out, that flat fee covers:

The shopping. We ask what the computer will actually do all day, then find the machine that fits it. You’re not paying us to point at the most expensive thing on the shelf.
Pre-setup at our office. The out-of-the-box work happens before delivery day, so your time with us goes to your data and your questions instead of progress bars.
Delivery. Anywhere in Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, or Dewey-Humboldt, with no trip fee.
Data transfer. Everything that lived on the old machine moves to the new one, photos included.
Software installation. The programs you actually use, working before we call the job finished.
Training, included. We stay until your questions run out. That time at the kitchen table is part of the price, not an add-on.

Your old machine comes back to our office for a secure wipe using the built-in Windows tools. If it’s dead, we physically destroy the storage drive instead. Then it goes to a local recycler. Nothing with your data on it ends up in a drawer or a landfill.

One local habit worth mentioning, since it’s monsoon season as this publishes: power surges kill a share of the older machines we replace every summer, so we make a point of putting a UPS (a battery backup that absorbs the surge) under the new one. Cheap protection in a town where the July lightning is not theoretical.

The migration snags we plan for

The transfer is the part clients worry about, usually because they’ve done one themselves and remember how it went. A few situations come up often enough that we have a standard process for each:

Outlook. Reconnecting email after an update is already one of the most common calls we get, and moving a tricky Outlook configuration to a brand-new machine is that same job with more steps. We know where it snags.
Software you can’t just re-download. Older or uncommon programs with no obvious installer. We track down what can be reinstalled, and we’ll tell you plainly if something won’t run on Windows 11 rather than let you find out later.
A browser that was never synced. If the old machine died with bookmarks and saved passwords stored only on its drive, we work from that drive and recover what we can.
The password hunt. Getting signed back in to everything is a real project on a new machine. We budget time for it instead of leaving you at a login screen.

Questions clients are asking

What if I already bought the new computer?

The $400 flat fee applies when the machine comes through us. If you’ve already bought one, we do the same transfer and setup work at our standard $160/hr with a 1-hour minimum on-site, and as always there’s no trip fee and no diagnostic fee. The full rate card is on our pricing page.

How long does a replacement take?

The in-home part is 1 visit. The wait in between is mostly for the machine itself to arrive: a recent client whose computer wouldn’t power on at all went from first call to a fully running new system within a week.

I’m on a Mac. Does any of this apply?

The Windows 10 deadline doesn’t, but the service does. We set up new Macs the same way, and the secure wipe on a retiring Mac uses Apple’s built-in tools. Macs are a smaller share of our work than Windows machines, and we handle them start to finish.

Will my files and photos survive the move?

Yes. The data transfer is the center of the job. Moving day is also the natural moment to put a real backup in place, so that the next transition, whenever it comes, is a non-event.

Could I just put an SSD in the old machine instead?

Sometimes that’s the right call. An SSD upgrade runs $150 to $250 in parts plus 1 to 2 hours of labor, and on a machine that can run Windows 11 and merely feels slow, it can be worth it. On a machine that can’t, you’d be buying a faster drive for a computer with no supported version of Windows in its future, which is the same dead end at a higher speed.

The short version

Check your machine’s eligibility this week. If Windows 11 is free, take it. If it isn’t, the computer has served its time, and replacing it before the October cutoff beats replacing it after something goes wrong. Call us at (928) 583-4454 and we’ll handle the whole thing in one visit.

Windows 10 support has ended. Here's your move.