Microsoft’s Update Mistake – new warning for millions of Windows PC owners
Microsoft’s Update Mistake – new warning for millions of Windows PC owners
Some users have been told that their version of Windows 11 "has reached the end of service" - despite its end of life not being until November 2025.
Published on 18th November 2024
Microsoft’s support for its 1.5 billion Windows users has been making headlines for months. It’s now just a year before Windows 10’s unpopular end-of-life, with the 850 million PC users yet to move to Windows 11 now contemplating the $30 single year extension that has just been confirmed.
But now there seems to be some bad news for Windows 11 users as well. Windows 11 24H2 has been making its own headlines, with a raft of new features that make it significant enough that it could have been badged Windows 12. But millions of users remain on Windows 11 23H2, and they have just been issued a surprising end-of-support warning of their own, which has caused serious alarm.
As reported by Windows Latest, “after installing Windows 11 23H2 Patch Tuesday KB5046633, which began rolling out on November 12, many users [say] that they are seeing alerts saying, “Get the newer version of Windows to stay up to date. Your version of Windows has reached the end of service.”
That should not be happening. Windows 11 23H2 support doesn’t actually expire until November 2025 for home users and November 2026 for enterprise users. And that means many millions of users incorrectly being warned that their PCs are coming off support a year earlier than expected.
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a mistake, and that it is being fixed server-side and will simply disappear from users’ PCs. “This is just a reporting bug on our side,” a company spokesperson told Windows Latest.
There are natural sensitivities across the Windows ecosystem as the moment, and it’s easy to see why users are concerned at unexpected messages such as this. Microsoft has repeatedly emphasized the risks of coming off support with those millions of Windows 10 holdouts in mind. With more zero-days fixed again this month with the ever more critical Patch Tuesday updates, users want to be sure they’re protected.
There are also a range of new warnings as various support and install pages are changed. These include another surprising notification, that new features might be installed automatically on a PC “if it is approaching or has reached the end of support for your currently installed Windows version. Feature updates offer new functionality and help keep your device secure.”
The question that has raised is whether such a move could eventually even include a forced upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, at least for those PCs technically capable—at least half of those yet to upgrade.
“It’s unclear how an update like KB5046633 caused Windows Update to incorrectly warn people,” Windows Latest says, “but you can safely ignore the alert and check back the Windows Update page later.”
