Which Version of Windows 11 Do You Have? 24H2 Stops Getting Updates on October 13, 2026

There are two Microsoft deadlines on October 13, 2026. The one getting the coverage is Office 2021, which stops being supported that day. The quieter one affects far more computers: Windows 11 version 24H2 reaches the end of its update life on the same date.

If that lands badly, here is the good news first, because this deadline is genuinely different in kind from the last two we have written about. You do not have to buy anything. You do not have to find out whether your hardware is good enough. You almost certainly do not need to replace the computer. For nearly everyone on 24H2, getting back onto a supported version is one restart, it costs nothing, and if you ignore it completely Windows will eventually do it for you anyway.

What is worth ten minutes is knowing which version you are actually on, what the date does and does not do, how to take the update on your schedule instead of Microsoft's, and one genuinely confusing thing that is going to have people hunting for an update their PC will never be offered. That last part is the bit no consumer coverage seems to explain, so it gets its own section.

Windows 11 is not one thing — yours has a version number

"Windows 11" is the nameplate. Underneath it there is a version, released roughly once a year and named for the half of the year it shipped in: 21H2, 22H2, 23H2, 24H2, 25H2. The support clock runs on the version, not on the nameplate — which is why a PC can be fully up to date on Windows 11 one year and quietly out of service the next, with nothing about it looking any different.

On Home and Pro, each version gets 24 months of servicing from its release date. Enterprise and Education editions get 36. Microsoft publishes the actual dates on its own lifecycle page, and the three rows that matter to most people read like this: version 23H2 ended on November 11, 2025; version 24H2 was released on October 1, 2024 and ends for Home and Pro on October 13, 2026; version 25H2 was released on September 30, 2025 and runs for Home and Pro until October 12, 2027.

Notice what that means in practice. 24H2 was the version Windows 11 shipped with and updated to for the entire year between October 2024 and the end of September 2025, so it is where an enormous number of machines have settled — including plenty that have been dutifully installing every monthly update and are, by any reasonable reading of their own Settings screen, "up to date".

How to check yours, in about twenty seconds

Two routes, both Microsoft's own. The first: Start > Settings > System > About, and look under Windows specifications, where you will see Edition, Version and OS build. The second is faster if you like a keyboard: press the Windows key and R together, type winver, press Enter, and the About Windows box tells you the same thing.

What you are looking for is the line that says Version, followed by something like 24H2 or 25H2. The OS build underneath is a useful cross-check, because each version has its own build family: 24H2 builds start 26100, 25H2 builds start 26200. If you see 26100, you are on 24H2 and this date is yours.

Two other outcomes are worth naming. If it says 23H2, 22H2 or 21H2, you are already past end of servicing rather than approaching it, and you should treat that as this week's job rather than this autumn's. And if it says Windows 10 rather than Windows 11, none of this applies to you — that is a different deadline with genuinely different answers, and we have a separate article on it.

What actually happens on October 13, 2026

On the day itself, nothing. The PC boots, your files are where you left them, your programs open, nothing expires and no watermark appears. What stops is maintenance: Microsoft stops issuing the monthly security updates for that version of Windows. The machine is not the thing that went out of support — the version is.

That distinction matters because it decides the fix. When a PC cannot run Windows 11 at all, the answer involves hardware and sometimes money. When a supported PC is merely sitting on a version that has aged out, the answer is a version update, and Microsoft is highly motivated to give you one for free. Its own end-of-servicing statement is blunt about the mechanism: "Windows Update will automatically start a feature update for Windows 11 consumer devices and non-managed business devices that have reached the end of servicing."

So the risk here is not a cliff on a Tuesday in October. It is the slow one — a machine that stops receiving security patches and keeps being used for banking and email as though nothing changed, which is exactly the state we find PCs in when somebody calls us about a browser full of pop-ups six months later.

Why the fix is one restart rather than an afternoon

This is the part that surprises people who remember older Windows upgrades taking an hour with a progress bar and a prayer. Going from 24H2 to 25H2 is not a reinstall. The two versions share a servicing branch, which means the new code was delivered to your PC months ago inside ordinary monthly updates and left switched off. Microsoft's own description of the enablement package that finishes the job is "a small, quick-to-install switch that activates all of the Windows 11, version 25H2 features."

You can see the shared branch in Microsoft's public release table, where the same August 2026 update is listed against both versions — the same patch, serving 24H2 as build 26100.9168 and 25H2 as build 26200.9168. They are, under the bonnet, much the same operating system with a different set of switches thrown.

The practical consequences are all good ones. There is no hardware compatibility test standing between a 24H2 machine and 25H2, because nothing new is being asked of the hardware. There is nothing to buy. And the update generally installs in about the time a monthly update takes, then wants one restart. If you have been putting it off because you pictured the Windows 10 to Windows 11 experience, picture a Patch Tuesday instead.

How to take it now, on your own schedule

Go to Settings > Windows Update and choose Check for updates. If 25H2 is being offered to your machine it appears as a feature update with its own Download and install button, separate from the monthly patches.

If it is not there, that is normal rather than broken. Microsoft rolls these out in stages, and when 25H2 opened up it went first to devices that had turned on "Get the latest updates as soon as they're available" — a toggle on that same Windows Update page. Turning it on is the honest way to move yourself up the queue, and it is the one we suggest if you would rather choose your own moment than be chosen for.

Pick a moment with some slack in it. The update is usually quick, but "usually quick" is doing some work in that sentence, and nobody enjoys discovering the exception fifteen minutes before a video call. A weekday evening with the laptop on mains power is ideal.

Do nothing and Windows does it for you — the only thing you control is when

Microsoft does not leave consumer machines to rot on an unsupported version. Windows Update automatically initiates a feature update for devices before, or as they are approaching, end of servicing, and this applies to consumer devices and to business devices that are not centrally managed by an IT department.

This is genuinely a kindness, and it is also the reason to act deliberately. An update you choose happens on a Thursday evening when the machine is idle. An update you did not choose happens whenever Windows decides you are approaching the deadline, which for a household PC that only gets switched on twice a week can mean it lands right when you sat down to do something. You cannot decline it in the long run; you can absolutely decide whether it happens on your terms.

If you are going to let it come to you, at least set your active hours on the Windows Update page so the restart cannot interrupt the part of the day you actually use the computer.

The confusing bit: there is a 26H1, it is newer, and your PC will never be offered it

Anyone who goes looking into this will find that Microsoft released Windows 11 version 26H1 on February 10, 2026 — newer than 25H2, with a support date out in 2028 — and will reasonably conclude that 26H1 is the thing to aim for. It is not, and this is the single most misleading-looking fact in the whole subject.

Microsoft's release information page states it plainly: version 26H1 "is scoped to support new devices that come 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." It is available preinstalled on select new machines — the Snapdragon X2 Series generation — and it is not offered through Windows Update at all.

So for an existing PC, the destination is 25H2 and nothing else. Being on 25H2 when 26H1 exists is not being behind. It is the newest version your computer is ever going to be offered, and it is supported until October 12, 2027.

Say that out loud and you can hear the scam waiting to happen: a hard deadline, plus a newer-sounding version people cannot get through the normal route, is precisely the gap that fake download sites and "update tools" exist to fill. There is no legitimate 26H1 download for an existing computer. If a search result offers you one, you have found the thing we warn about in our guide to spotting fake software download sites, not a shortcut.

"Your device isn't quite ready" — what a safeguard hold is, and why not to force past it

Some PCs check for updates, see a message saying the update is on its way but not yet ready for this device, and are offered no button at all. That is a safeguard hold, and it is a feature rather than a fault.

Microsoft applies holds when its compatibility data shows a specific combination of hardware, drivers or software would make the update fail or misbehave — in its own words, cases that would cause "rollback of the update, data loss, loss of connectivity, or loss of key functionality" with no workaround yet available. The documented example on Microsoft's own page is a fingerprint sensor issue, which tells you the flavour: it is usually a driver for one specific component, not a judgement on your whole computer.

The temptation is to reach for the Installation Assistant or an ISO and push the update through by hand. Microsoft's advice is the opposite, and we agree with it: "We recommend that you don't attempt to manually update until issues have been resolved and holds released." The hold lifts by itself once the fix ships, and the automatic update described above will then catch the machine anyway. Forcing past a hold is how a working PC becomes a broken one on a schedule of your own choosing.

If it genuinely will not install

Before assuming the worst, walk the short list. Updates can be paused — check Settings > Windows Update for a resume button, since a pause set months ago is easy to forget. A connection marked as metered will hold large updates back. Feature updates want a meaningful amount of free space on the C: drive, and a drive that has been hovering near full for a year is a common cause. And a laptop will not start one on battery.

If the update starts and then fails, rolls back, or sticks at a percentage for hours, that is a different problem with its own fixes, and we have written the long version separately — see our guide to Windows updates that get stuck or refuse to install.

Work laptops and the small-business version of this

If the PC belongs to an employer, or is enrolled in something an IT provider manages, this is not your decision to make and you should not force it. It is also less urgent than it looks: Enterprise and Education editions of 24H2 are serviced until October 12, 2027, a full year beyond the Home and Pro date, which is a perfectly legitimate reason for a work machine to still be on 24H2 after this October. Check the Edition line in that same About screen before worrying.

The small-business case with no IT department is the one we actually get called about, and it has a specific failure mode: the machine nobody uses daily. The reception PC, the back-office laptop, the computer that only comes out for quarterly VAT or payroll. Those are the ones that miss rollouts, sit on old versions, and are simultaneously the machines most likely to have accounting data on them. Walking round every computer in the office once with winver takes ten minutes and is worth doing before October rather than after.

The dates people are already mixing up

There are four in play and they are easy to blur together, so here they are in one place. November 11, 2025: Windows 11 version 23H2 already reached end of servicing — if you are on it, you are behind now. October 13, 2026: Windows 11 version 24H2 ends for Home and Pro, and Office 2021 reaches end of support on the very same day, which is why the two stories keep getting tangled.

Then October 12, 2027, which does double duty: it is when Windows 11 version 25H2 ends for Home and Pro, and it is also when the consumer Extended Security Updates programme for Windows 10 finishes. Those are two different products with two different sets of consequences that happen to share a date.

The useful way to hold all that: if you are on Windows 11, your October 2026 job is free and takes a restart. If you are on Windows 10, your deadline is a year later and the decision is a real one about hardware and money. Do not let coverage of the second make you panic about the first.

The five minutes to spend before any feature update

Feature updates are far safer than their reputation and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But two things are worth doing first, because they cost nothing and they are the two failures we actually see.

The first is the obvious one: have a backup of anything you would miss, on something that is not inside the computer. The second is less obvious and catches people out badly. Windows 11 turns device encryption on by itself on plenty of modern machines, and the first time many people discover this is when something about the boot configuration changes and the PC asks for a BitLocker recovery key they have never seen. Before a version update, take two minutes to confirm that key is saved to your Microsoft account, or written down somewhere that is not the encrypted drive. We have a whole article on that particular trap, and it is the one worth reading if you only read one.

The short version

Check Settings > System > About, or run winver. If it says Version 24H2, your version stops getting security updates on October 13, 2026. If it says 25H2, you are fine until October 12, 2027. If it says 23H2 or older, you are already unsupported and should sort it this week.

Getting from 24H2 to 25H2 is free, needs no new hardware, and is closer to a monthly update than an upgrade, because the code is already on your machine waiting to be switched on. Take it yourself through Windows Update rather than waiting for Microsoft to initiate it for you. Ignore 26H1 entirely — it is real, it is newer, and it is only for new machines, so any site offering it to you as a download is not offering you Windows. And if Windows says the update is not ready for your device, believe it and wait rather than forcing it.

How we can help

Most people can do this themselves from the sections above, and if that is you, we are glad. Where a hand is genuinely worth it is the awkward middle: a PC that has been sitting on a safeguard hold for months and nobody knows why, a drive too full to take a feature update that needs clearing out properly rather than by deleting things at random, an update that failed and rolled back twice, or a household or small office where nobody is sure which of six machines are current.

We also do the unglamorous part around it — checking that a real backup exists before anything is touched, making sure the BitLocker recovery key is somewhere findable, and confirming afterwards that the printer, the scanner and the accounting software all still work, which is the bit that actually determines whether an update was a success. If your machine turns out to be on Windows 10 rather than Windows 11, that is a different conversation and our repair-or-replace calculator is a sensible place to start it.