Microsoft in 2025: year in review

Microsoft pushed AI even harder this year – and Windows 11 users rebelled

31 Dec 2025, 12:45 · TechRadar

Features By Darren Allan published 31 December 2025

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How was 2025 for Microsoft? This year was shaky in many respects for the software giant, and notable stumbling blocks included a lacklustre level of migration to Windows 11 – despite the official end of Windows 10 happening in October (with a notable caveat) – and a huge drive with AI features that led to some immense pushback from disgruntled users who are unhappy with the current state of Microsoft's desktop OS.

Let's dive into the details of how Microsoft performed in 2025, starting with those key issues around Windows, and moving on to consider hardware, a glaring gaming fail, and other aspects where the company dropped the ball somewhat – plus there were some highlights, too.

Windows 10 support ran out – but there was no rush to upgrade to Windows 11

On October 14, 2025, the curtain was drawn over Windows 10, as the final official update for the last-gen operating system was deployed. But uniquely for consumers, this wasn't necessarily the end, as for the first time, everyday users were offered the chance to sign up for extended updates (along with businesses that have always had this privilege).

The Extended Security Updates (ESU) scheme was yours for the price of $30, or alternatively, you could just sync your PC settings to OneDrive and avail yourself of a year of extra support (through to October 2026) for no financial cost.

It was good to see Microsoft make this move – by which I mean the (effectively) free option for extended updates, which was implemented relatively late in the day – and it meant that quite a few folks remained on Windows 10 as a result. However, in turn this also meant that migration to Windows 11 has been more of a trickle than a torrent. (Although due to a good many older PCs not being compatible with its steeper system requirements, that was always going to be the case to an extent).

As to how many people ultimately make the move from Windows 10 to 11, that remains to be seen next year, when extended support runs out (assuming there's no further extension to the single additional year currently offered to consumers).

So, Windows 10 support ending turned out to be something of a non-event, although not entirely, as some Linux distros claimed that they were getting a substantial number of Windows defectors right off the bat. Is this the beginning of the long-predicted rise of Linux in the sphere of desktop operating systems? Let's not get carried away yet, but Valve is throwing its weight around in this area too with SteamOS (and I'll come back to why that's important shortly).

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