Windows 10 End of Life Australia — Upgrade to Windows 11 Guide for Businesses

Windows 10 reached end of life on 14 October 2025 — Microsoft has ended mainstream and extended support, meaning no further security patches, no vulnerability fixes, and no technical support for Windows 10 devices. Australian businesses still running Windows 10 in 2026 are operating on unsupported software with known, unpatched vulnerabilities — creating a direct breach of Essential Eight Patch OS requirements and most Australian cyber insurance policy conditions.

What Windows 10 end of life means for Australian businesses

The consequences are immediate and compounding. No security patches — Microsoft will not release security updates for Windows 10 vulnerabilities discovered after October 2025, so known vulnerabilities accumulate month by month into an expanding attack surface. Essential Eight non-compliance — Maturity Level 1 requires operating systems to be patched within 30 days of patch release; with no patches available, the Patch Operating Systems control fails immediately and cannot be remediated. Cyber insurance risk — most Australian cyber insurance policies require operating systems to be within vendor support, so claims arising from incidents on Windows 10 devices may be denied. PCI DSS and healthcare compliance — businesses handling payment card data or patient health information have explicit supported-OS requirements, and Windows 10 no longer satisfies them. Vendor support — Microsoft 365 apps, Defender for Endpoint, and Intune progressively drop Windows 10 support through 2026, and some functionality is already restricted on Windows 10 devices today. See our Essential Eight compliance guide for how this affects your maturity rating.

Can your hardware run Windows 11 — the TPM 2.0 problem for Australian businesses

Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module 2.0), Secure Boot, and a compatible 64-bit processor — requirements that exclude many PCs manufactured before 2018. The practical impact for Australian businesses is straightforward: any PC purchased before roughly 2018 likely cannot run Windows 11 without a hardware upgrade, regardless of how well it performs today. To check an individual device, run Microsoft's PC Health Check tool from within Windows 10; it reports pass or fail against each Windows 11 requirement and names the blocking component. For businesses with a mixed device fleet, checking machines one at a time is impractical — Intune device compliance reporting provides a fleet-wide Windows 11 compatibility assessment, separating devices that need a software upgrade from those that need hardware replacement. Mycelium 365 runs a free Windows 11 readiness assessment as part of every managed IT engagement, producing a per-device compatibility report and a prioritised replacement list.

How to upgrade Australian business PCs to Windows 11 — the three approaches

There are three viable upgrade paths. In-place upgrade moves a compatible PC directly from Windows 10 to Windows 11 via Windows Update or Intune — no data loss, existing applications preserved, typically 45–90 minutes per device, and suitable for compatible hardware up to about five years old. Windows Autopilot fresh deployment ships new PCs preconfigured for Windows 11 — zero-touch setup, the device is couriered directly to the staff member, and it configures itself from your Intune tenant with no IT involvement, which makes it ideal for hardware replacement cycles. Manual reimaging suits older compatible hardware where in-place upgrade proves unreliable — a technician performs a clean Windows 11 installation and data migration, which is more time-intensive but produces a clean, drift-free environment. For most Australian businesses the right answer is a combination: in-place upgrade for compatible hardware under five years old, hardware replacement for older incompatible devices, and Autopilot deployment for all new hardware from here on.

Windows 11 upgrade via Microsoft Intune for Australian businesses

Microsoft Intune automates Windows 11 upgrades across a fleet without IT physically touching each device. The process is consistent: create a Windows 11 feature update policy in Intune targeting the Windows 10 device group; set the deployment ring so a pilot of roughly 10% of devices upgrades first, with broad deployment following after a seven-day monitoring period; configure deadline policies so devices must upgrade within 14 days of policy assignment — users can defer, but not permanently avoid, the update; then monitor compliance through Intune feature update reporting, which shows upgrade status per device so IT can identify stuck machines and resolve them remotely. For Australian businesses already running Microsoft 365 Business Premium with Intune deployed, Windows 11 upgrades can be managed entirely remotely with zero on-site visits. Mycelium 365 has completed Intune-managed Windows 11 fleet upgrades for Australian businesses of all sizes using this deployment ring model.

Windows 11 upgrade cost for Australian businesses

Costs fall into three buckets. Compatible hardware in-place upgrade carries no licence cost — Windows 11 is a free upgrade for licensed Windows 10 devices — so the only spend is IT time: roughly 2–4 hours to configure the Intune deployment policy, plus about an hour a week of monitoring for two weeks. Hardware replacement is the real budget line: commercial-grade Windows 11 business laptops from the Dell, HP, and Lenovo business ranges or Microsoft Surface start around $1,200–2,500 AUD, and most Australian businesses should budget $1,500–2,000 per device for a mid-range business laptop with Windows 11 Pro. Extended Security Updates (ESU) are the fallback — Microsoft offers paid ESU for Windows 10 at approximately $30 USD per device for Year 1, $60 for Year 2, and $120 for Year 3, which buys time for businesses that cannot complete the upgrade immediately but need to stay patched. Mycelium 365 delivers fixed-price Windows 11 upgrade projects with per-device pricing set from the fleet assessment.

How Mycelium 365 manages Windows 11 upgrades for Australian businesses

We start with a free fleet assessment that classifies every device as upgrade-ready, replace, or ESU-bridge, then build an Intune deployment ring plan so upgrades roll out in controlled waves with deadline enforcement and per-device reporting. Hardware procurement is handled end to end — commercial-grade devices sourced, enrolled in Autopilot, and shipped directly to staff so they self-configure on first login. The entire project is managed remotely with no on-site visits required, and every device lands in a compliant, Essential Eight aligned baseline. See our Intune device management guide, our Essential Eight compliance guide, our managed Microsoft 365 services and managed IT services in Melbourne, or compare inclusions on our packages page and contact us to book your readiness assessment.