Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro Reach End of Servicing Today
Today, October 13, 2026, Windows 11 version 24H2 Home and Pro editions reach end of servicing. After today, these specific editions on this specific version stop receiving monthly security and quality updates. For everyday consumer machines this is usually a quiet, automatic non-event, but for anyone managing a fleet of Windows 11 devices, including small businesses on Pro without Enterprise-grade management tooling, this is worth actually checking rather than assuming Windows Update will just handle it.
What actually changes
Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro no longer receive monthly security and non-security preview updates after today. A device still running 24H2 past this point is not going to get patched for newly disclosed vulnerabilities, which is a real, accumulating exposure the longer it goes unaddressed, not a one-time inconvenience.
The upgrade path is deliberately low-friction, which is also why it’s easy to lose track of
Windows 11 version 25H2 ships as an enablement package, a small update applied on top of the existing 24H2 installation, rather than a full OS reinstall. For unmanaged consumer and small-business devices (anything not under Windows Update for Business, Intune, or WSUS policy control), Microsoft deploys this automatically, the user keeps control of restart timing but not whether the update happens. That’s exactly why it’s easy to assume “it’s handled” and not actually verify it, the mechanism is designed to be invisible when it works.
Where it isn’t automatic: managed fleets
Devices managed through Intune, Group Policy, or WSUS with explicit feature update deferral or targeting policies do not get the automatic push, by design, since that’s the whole point of managed update control. If your organization has deferral policies that were set with 24H2 as the target feature version and never revisited, those devices are now sitting on an edition that stopped receiving security updates today, and nothing will fix that automatically. This is the actual action item for anyone running IT for more than a handful of machines.
Step 1: find out what you’re actually running, across the fleet
# Single machine
Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object OsName, WindowsVersion, OsBuildNumber
# Across a domain, requires RSAT / AD PowerShell
Get-ADComputer -Filter {OperatingSystem -like "*Windows 11*"} -Property OperatingSystem, OperatingSystemVersion |
Select-Object Name, OperatingSystem, OperatingSystemVersion |
Sort-Object OperatingSystemVersionBuild 26100 corresponds to 24H2. If a machine reports that build number today, it’s on the edition that just stopped receiving updates.
Step 2: check your deferral and targeting policy
- Intune: check your Windows Update ring and Feature Update deployment profiles for a “target version” explicitly pinned to 24H2, update it to 25H2 or remove the hard pin so devices follow the default current version.
- WSUS: confirm the 25H2 feature update is approved and available in your update group, an unapproved feature update sits invisible to client machines no matter how current WSUS itself is.
- Group Policy: check Select the target Feature Update version under Windows Update for Business settings, same issue, a stale explicit version target silently blocks the newer release.
Step 3: push or schedule the update deliberately
Once targeting is corrected, treat the 25H2 rollout like any other feature update in your environment, staged rings, a pilot group first, monitoring for the usual post-upgrade issues, rather than letting it land on every machine simultaneously. Since 25H2 is an enablement package rather than a full upgrade, it’s lower-risk than a traditional feature update, but it’s still a change worth rolling out deliberately rather than assuming it’s automatic in a managed environment.
Quick guide
- Inventory your Windows 11 fleet for build 26100 (24H2) machines.
- Check Intune/WSUS/GPO for a stale explicit version pin to 24H2.
- Correct the targeting to allow or push 25H2.
- Roll out in stages, pilot ring first, rather than all at once.
- Re-check your inventory after rollout to confirm the fleet actually moved, don’t assume the policy change alone was sufficient.
FAQ
Is Windows 11 24H2 completely dead starting today?
It stops receiving monthly security and non-security updates for Home and Pro editions specifically. It will continue to run, but any newly disclosed vulnerability from this point forward goes unpatched on that edition, which is a real and growing risk the longer a device stays on it.
Does this affect Windows 11 Enterprise or Education editions?
No, this specific end-of-servicing date applies to Home and Pro editions of version 24H2. Enterprise and Education editions follow a separate, longer servicing timeline under their own lifecycle policy.
Will upgrading to 25H2 require a full reinstall or significant downtime?
No, 25H2 installs as an enablement package on top of an existing 24H2 installation, which is a much smaller, faster update than a traditional feature upgrade, typically just a restart rather than an extended installation process.
What if a managed device can’t move to 25H2 yet for compatibility reasons?
That’s a legitimate reason to hold a specific device back temporarily, but it should be a deliberate, documented exception with a real remediation timeline, not an accidental side effect of a forgotten version pin from months ago. Track those exceptions explicitly so they get revisited, rather than becoming permanent unpatched stragglers.
