Alternative operating systems: what to do now that Windows 10 is out of support

Windows 10 went out of support on 14 October 2025. Your PC keeps working, but Microsoft no longer adds features, quality fixes or helpdesk support to it. Most people's reaction falls into one of two camps: buy a new computer, or install Linux. Both are perfectly reasonable. Neither one is required.

This article is for people who would like to stop worrying about it. We look at what actually stopped, what Microsoft's paid ESU programme gives you, which alternatives exist today, and how to move without losing files, settings or your afternoon.

What "out of support" actually means

Windows 10 received its final monthly update in October 2025. Since then the system runs, but nobody fixes it. Concretely:

• No new features, no quality improvements, and no security fixes outside the ESU programme.
• No technical support. If something breaks, the official answer is that Windows 10 is no longer supported.
• Microsoft 365 applications are no longer supported on Windows 10. The apps themselves keep working, and Microsoft will keep shipping security updates for them on Windows 10 until 10 October 2028.

That last point is worth dwelling on, because it is often skipped: end of support does not mean the system stops being usable. It means the gap between newly discovered vulnerabilities and the patches that fix them keeps growing.

ESU: the paid bridge Microsoft is selling

Microsoft sells an Extended Security Updates (ESU) programme. It is not a new version of Windows and it adds no features. You get the critical and important security patches and nothing else, until you move to Windows 11 or somewhere else.

For individual users the options are a one-off payment of 30 USD (roughly 55 BGN) per device, free enrolment if you sync your PC settings with a Microsoft account, or free enrolment with 1000 Microsoft Rewards points. You can join at any point until the programme ends on 12 October 2027, and existing enrolments run to that date automatically. For organisations the terms are steeper and enrolment is bought company-wide.

The practical reading is simple. If you are on Windows 10 today and have not decided what comes next, ESU is a sensible purchase. It buys you time to prepare the machine. It is not a ten-year answer.

First question: does your hardware pass Windows 11?

Before we talk about Linux, check the minimum specifications Windows 11 insists on: a supported processor, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage, and TPM 2.0 plus Secure Boot. Most machines from 2018 onwards already ship with TPM 2.0 in the firmware even though the manufacturer never advertised it; older Windows 7 and 8 boxes do not. Microsoft offers an official check (PC Health Check), and there are also registry tweaks that bypass the TPM requirement — but then you are running an unsupported configuration and lose the right to help when something goes wrong.

If Windows 11 passes on your machine, reorder your plan: upgrade first, consider ESU second, and only look at Linux if you have a concrete reason to leave Windows. For most home users that is cheaper, faster and far less stressful.

If you do move to Linux: five distributions worth your time

"Linux" is a kernel, not an operating system. There are hundreds of distributions, and that is where the confusion starts. Coming from Windows 10, only a handful are worth the detour.

Weaker machines have lighter versions of the same ideas — Mint Xfce, Xubuntu, or Debian with Xfce — that use far less memory and run well on processors built a decade ago. For gaming on capable hardware, the story is different and we covered it in our article on Linux gaming with Wine and graphics cards.

ChromeOS Flex: the sensible answer for an old laptop

When the machine is at the edge and the real question is "can this do anything useful yet", there is an option outside both Windows and Linux. ChromeOS Flex is a Google-maintained operating system designed for older Intel or AMD machines. The requirements are modest: a 64-bit processor, at least 4 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage and administrator access to the BIOS or UEFI. Google continues to ship regular updates to it. There is one important limitation: it has no Google Play and no Android apps, and its security and stability guarantees sit below those of a Chromebook. In 2025 Google also announced the merger of ChromeOS with Android (internally Aluminium), with ChromeOS support continuing on some devices until 2034.

ChromeOS Flex works well as a second machine, a school laptop, a car or point-of-sale terminal, and for anyone who realistically only needs a browser. As a primary work machine running Windows software, it is not the answer.

The other option: FreeBSD and the rest of the BSDs

FreeBSD shares a common ancestor with Linux, which is regularly mistaken for being part of the same family. It is more conservative, obsessive about backward compatibility, and it lives in servers and embedded systems where Linux is not the default choice. For an ordinary user in Bulgaria this is a niche path, but if it interests you, go to the official documentation rather than to forums full of advice from 2016.

How to move without losing anything

1. Back up first. To an external drive or cloud storage. That is the whole safety net. If a file matters, it lives on the backup, not on Windows 10.
2. Try before you install. Most distributions boot from a USB stick as a "live" system. It sees your hardware, can test the RAM and shows you what the desktop feels like. Nothing is written to the disk.
3. Decide what happens to Windows. Dual boot keeps Windows for special cases. A clean install gives you more space and fewer oddities. If Windows is protected with BitLocker, turn it off beforehand — otherwise Linux will not be able to read that partition.
4. Install and move your data. Documents, photos and work folders transfer by hand or by copy. Applications get installed again, and that is the key difference from a Windows upgrade.
5. Check the hardware. Printer, scanner, graphics card, Wi-Fi adapter. Most problems have a solution, but you want to know before, not after.
6. Plan your way back. If something goes sideways, Windows is still on the disk and boots in seconds. If you decide to return to Windows 11, remember that Secure Boot may need re-enabling and the partition may need reformatting.

When not to migrate

Stay on Windows if any of this applies:

• You depend on Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Cloud, CAD software, or Bulgarian banking applications that rely on ActiveX and Windows components.
• You play games with anti-cheat. Some of them simply refuse to start outside Windows.
• You need a corporate VPN or certificate-based software that does not carry over to Linux.
• You rely on a specific printer or scanner with no working Linux driver.
• The only reason is that you heard "Windows 10 is dangerous". That is an exaggeration. An unpatched system carries more risk, but it is not infected by definition.

In all of those cases the answer is the same: Windows 11 if the hardware allows it, and ESU to cover the gap.

The short version: a five-step plan

1. Check your hardware against Windows 11 with Microsoft's own tool.
2. If it passes, upgrade and stop worrying.
3. If it does not, choose: new hardware or Linux.
4. Pick a distribution based on your own habits, not on forum opinions.
5. Test it from a USB stick before you erase anything.

We wrote a detailed installation guide with the exact commands and requirements for each distribution in our article on the Debian family and its clones, and compared the desktop options in Mint and Ubuntu against Windows and macOS.

If you would rather have the machine checked before you commit, get in touch on our contact page or call +359 888 837 314. Linux installation is one of our services, and the diagnosis is free when a repair follows.