Windows 10 EOL Is Tomorrow And Microsoft's Upgrade Tool Is Broken, What Now?
After more than a decade of service, Windows 10, once pitched as the last monolithic version of Windows ever, is just hours away from officially reaching end of life (EOL) status, which Consumer Reports deemed a national security threat. That means no more technical support or free security updates (with caveats) despite a petition to compel Microsoft to change its mind. And as lousy timing would have it, Microsoft's handy media creation tool to facilitate clean installations to Windows 11 is having issues on Windows 10 PCs.
While not the end of the world, it's an inconvenience for this to happen in the final hours before Windows 10 is retired. After all, hundreds of millions of PCs are still running Windows 10, even with the PC market seeing its biggest growth in three years in part because of the looming upgrade deadline, according to a recent PC shipment audit by IDC.
Microsoft's media creation tool allows users to quickly and easily create a bootable USB flash drive or DVD to reinstall or perform a clean install of Windows 11. Unfortunately for anyone who put off upgrading until the last minute, a recent version update is causing trouble for some Windows 10 users.
"The Windows 11 media creation tool version 26100.6584, released September 29, 2025, might not work as expected when used on Windows 10 devices. The media creation tool might close unexpectedly, displaying no error message," Microsoft states (credit to Windows Latest for spotting the disclaimer).
Microsoft says it is working on a resolution that it will release in a future update, but that doesn't do much good for Windows 10 users who want to upgrade to Windows 11 before support officially ends.
There is some good news, however. For one, Microsoft is offering a couple of avenues to extend Windows 10 support at no cost, though neither one is super ideal. One is to redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points instead of paying a fee, and the other enroll in extended security updates by syncing a Windows 10 PC with a Microsoft account using OneDrive.
That latter method entails navigating to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and clicking Enroll Now, then following the prompts. Be sure your PC is already fully patched and that you're logged in with administrator privileges.
Alternatively, Microsoft is charging $30 to keep receiving support and updates without having to log into a Microsoft account.
If you're not looking to extend support and want to make the leap to Windows 11, first make sure that your PC supports the OS. If so, you can head to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and see if an upgrade to Windows 11 is available. If so, click the option and follow the prompts.
The other option is to use an alternative to Microsoft's media creation tool, such as Rufus (last updated 2 weeks ago on GitHub) or Ventoy and downloading a Windows 11 disk image directly from Microsoft.
