Windows 11 24H2 End of Support Date: What to Do Now

Windows 11, version 24H2 reached its end of servicing today, October 13, 2026, for the Home, Pro, Pro Education, and Pro for Workstations editions. Microsoft's own Windows release-health page confirms the date: devices still running 24H2 on those editions stop receiving monthly security and quality updates from this point forward. Enterprise, Education, IoT Enterprise, and Enterprise multi-session editions are not affected yet — they get 36 months of servicing instead of 24, so their 24H2 cutoff isn't until October 12, 2027. If you're not sure which edition you're running, open Settings > System > About and check the "Edition" and "Version" fields before you do anything else.

What happened on October 13, 2026

Windows 11 follows an annual feature-update cadence. Each version — identified by a year and half-year label like 24H2 or 25H2 — gets a fixed window of monthly servicing after it ships, and then that window closes. According to Microsoft's Windows 11 release-information page, version 24H2 became generally available on October 1, 2024, and its end-of-servicing date for the shorter-support editions is listed in the release table as 2026-10-13. That date has now arrived.

This isn't a surprise deadline. Microsoft has published the 24-month and 36-month servicing windows for every Windows 11 version since launch, and the release-health page has carried this exact date for 24H2 for some time. What changes today is that the date moves from "upcoming" to "in effect": devices on 24H2 Home, Pro, Pro Education, or Pro for Workstations will no longer receive the monthly cumulative updates Microsoft ships on the second Tuesday of each month.

Who is affected — and who isn't

Microsoft's lifecycle FAQ for Windows spells out the servicing timeline by edition. Windows 11 editions split into two groups with two different clocks:

• 24 months from release (affected today): Windows 11 Home, Pro, Pro Education, Pro for Workstations, and Windows 11 SE.
• 36 months from release (not affected until October 2027): Windows 11 Enterprise, Enterprise multi-session, Education, and IoT Enterprise.

That split is why a 24H2 Enterprise laptop in an IT-managed fleet is still fully supported today, while a 24H2 Home or Pro PC bought from a retail store two years ago just lost its servicing window. The practical effect is overwhelmingly consumer and small-business focused: Home and standard Pro are the editions nearly every pre-built PC, laptop, and small-office machine ships with, which means most individual Windows 11 users are the ones who need to act.

Microsoft's lifecycle documentation also notes a wrinkle specific to Home: that edition doesn't support deferring feature updates, so Home PCs typically get pushed to a newer version automatically before they ever reach their listed end-of-servicing date. If a Home PC is still sitting on 24H2 today, it's usually because Windows Update hasn't yet offered or completed the move to a newer version — which makes checking for updates right now the first thing to do.

What "end of servicing" actually means

"End of servicing" is Microsoft's term for the date a specific Windows 11 version stops receiving updates — it does not mean Windows 11 itself is unsupported, and it does not mean the PC stops working. Microsoft's Windows lifecycle FAQ is direct about the consequence: once a version of Windows reaches the end of support, "customers will no longer receive technical assistance, software updates, or security fixes" for that version. The operating system keeps booting, apps keep running, and existing files are untouched.

What stops is the monthly cumulative update — the combined security-and-quality patch Microsoft ships on the second Tuesday of most months, which Microsoft's release-information page describes as containing "all previous updates to keep devices protected and productive." For a 24H2 PC on an affected edition, there will be no more of those after this month's update. No new fixes for newly discovered vulnerabilities, no driver and reliability patches tied to that build, and no more entries in the monthly KB article list for 24H2.

It's also worth being precise about what "end of servicing" is not: it isn't the same event as Windows 10's end of support in October 2025, which ended an entire product line with an optional paid Extended Security Updates program as a bridge. Windows 11 24H2 reaching end of servicing is a version-level cutoff inside an OS that is still very much current — the fix is simply to move to a newer, still-serviced version of Windows 11, which for most people is a routine update rather than a new purchase.

What happens if you don't update

Nothing breaks immediately, and that's exactly what makes this deadline easy to ignore. A 24H2 Home or Pro PC will boot normally tomorrow, next month, and next year. The risk compounds quietly instead: every security vulnerability discovered in Windows components from this point forward goes unpatched on that version, while supported versions keep getting fixed. Over weeks and months, the gap between a patched and an unpatched 24H2 machine widens, and that machine becomes a more attractive target simply because its known weaknesses no longer get closed.

There are secondary effects too. Software vendors and driver makers generally test against currently serviced Windows versions; over time, new app releases and hardware drivers are more likely to assume a supported build. Enterprise tools like endpoint management and compliance baselines often key off supported-version status, so an unsupported 24H2 device can start failing compliance checks in a managed environment even if it's technically allowed to keep running. None of this is dramatic on day one — it's a slow erosion of the safety margin a fully patched PC normally has.

Windows 11 version support dates at a glance

Microsoft's release-health page lists end-of-servicing dates for every current Windows 11 version, split by the same 24-month and 36-month edition groups described above. Here's the current table as published by Microsoft:

Two things stand out in that table. First, 25H2 — the version most 24H2 devices should be moving to — still has a full year of servicing ahead of it on the shorter-support editions. Second, 26H1 is listed separately with its own build number (28000) rather than slotting into the normal upgrade path from 24H2 or 25H2, which is explained in the next section.

How to move to a supported version

For nearly all existing 24H2 PCs on Home, Pro, Pro Education, or Pro for Workstations, the fix is to update through Windows Update rather than reinstalling anything:

1. Open Start, then go to Settings > Windows Update.
2. Select Check for updates.
3. If a newer version is offered, select Download & install. The device downloads and installs the update, and may need a restart to finish.

Because 24H2 and 25H2 share the same underlying OS core, this move typically installs as a small enablement package rather than a full feature-update download — it's a much lighter process than the original upgrade from Windows 10. Microsoft's support documentation also notes that if a newer version isn't yet offered automatically through Check for updates, it can be installed manually using the Windows Update Assistant.

If you manage multiple devices — a small office, a few family PCs, a volunteer org's machines — checking Settings > System > About on each one first will tell you quickly which machines are still on 24H2 and which have already moved to 25H2 or later. For anyone who already dealt with the version 26H2 rollout on some machines, it's worth knowing that 26H2 has its own set of early quirks worth checking before assuming every device should jump straight to the newest build; see Microsoft's confirmed 26H2 known issues if you're deciding which supported version to land on.

Why version 26H1 isn't the upgrade target

It would be reasonable to assume the newest available Windows 11 version is always the right move, but Microsoft's release-health page is explicit that version 26H1 doesn't work that way. Its documented note reads: "Windows 11, version 26H1 is scoped to support new devices that started coming to market in early 2026 and is not designed as a feature update for existing devices. This version is not offered as an in-place update from 24H2 or 25H2 on existing devices."

In practice, that means a 24H2 PC checking Windows Update will not be offered 26H1 as an upgrade path, regardless of hardware. 26H1 ships only preinstalled on qualifying new devices and carries its own build number (28000) and its own servicing clock, separate from the 26100/26200/26300 build lineage that 24H2, 25H2, and 26H2 share. For existing hardware, the supported upgrade path runs through 25H2 (and, once broadly offered and settled, 26H2) — not through 26H1.

The 36-month exception: Enterprise and Education

Organizations running Windows 11 Enterprise, Enterprise multi-session, Education, or IoT Enterprise on version 24H2 are not part of today's deadline. Microsoft's lifecycle FAQ sets a 36-month servicing window for those editions, which puts 24H2's end-of-servicing date for them at October 12, 2027 — a full year after the Home/Pro cutoff hitting today. This gap exists specifically so IT departments have more runway to test, pilot, and roll out feature updates across managed fleets without being forced onto the same annual clock as consumer devices.

That extra year is a planning window, not a pass. The same mechanics apply once it closes: Enterprise and Education devices still on 24H2 past October 2027 will stop receiving security and quality updates for that version, exactly as is now happening on the Home and Pro side. Worth noting for anyone scheduling that move: the current shared cumulative update, KB5124010, has already caused at least one reported issue — apps closing unexpectedly due to an AC-3 audio bug — so it's worth checking known issues before pushing it fleet-wide.

Common questions this raises

A few points come up every time a Windows version reaches end of servicing, so it's worth addressing them directly here before the FAQ section below. Will the PC stop working? No — end of servicing affects updates, not the ability to boot and run the OS. Is this the same as Windows 10's end of support? No — that ended an entire product line with a paid Extended Security Updates bridge; this is a routine version-level cutoff inside Windows 11, which remains current. Do you need to buy anything? No — moving from 24H2 to 25H2 is a free update delivered through Windows Update on eligible devices already running Windows 11.

What's next

For most people reading this because a 24H2 PC just lost its servicing window, the action is small: open Windows Update, install whatever version is offered, restart, and move on. Microsoft's own documentation treats this as routine — the release-health page exists precisely so IT administrators and everyday users alike can see these dates coming well in advance, and the enablement-package mechanism exists so moving between versions doesn't require a full reinstall.

Looking ahead, 25H2 itself has a defined servicing clock that runs to October 2027 on the shorter-support editions, and 26H2 — released September 29, 2026 — is now the current version with servicing into October 2028. Devices that update today will likely face this same prompt again in roughly a year, when 25H2 approaches its own end-of-servicing date. Bookmarking Microsoft's release-health page, or simply keeping Windows Update set to check automatically, is the most reliable way to avoid finding out about the next cutoff the same way many people are finding out about this one: on the day it arrives.

Written byFelix Moreau

Felix Moreau writes Pandromeda's software coverage and how-to guides. He covers Windows, macOS and Linux updates, the apps people rely on, emulators and developer tools, and turns official documentation into clear, numbered steps that work on the current version.

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