Windows 10

This article is about the operating system series developed since 2014. See Windows 10 (original release) for the original operating system release called "Windows 10". Windows 10 is a series of Microsoft Windows operating systems, initially released in July 2015 after being announced in September 2014. It succeeded Windows 8.1 and was ultimately superseded by Windows 11 in October 2021. A new release model called Windows as a service was introduced with smaller and regular feature updates, as opposed to releasing a major version of Windows every few year. Usually, these updates are a new build of the operating system, although in a few cases Microsoft released feature updates consisting of a limited set of new functionality using the regular cumulative update infrastructure.

Originally, feature updates were released twice in a year, with the first feature update being released in spring and the other in autumn. The schedule was realigned in 2021 in that feature updates for Windows 10 would be released annually in order to be consistent with Windows 11's new release cadence.

This is the first version of Microsoft Windows to not include MS-DOS in any form as the ability to create MS-DOS 8.00 boot disks has been removed. It is also the first version of Microsoft Windows to not have support for Windows Media Center as Microsoft decided to discontinue the app due to decreased usage. Also, this is the last version of Microsoft Windows which supports 32-bit processors (IA-32 and ARMv7-based) and devices with BIOS firmware. Its successor, Windows 11, requires a device that uses UEFI firmware and a 64-bit processor in any supported architecture (x86-64 and ARMv8), though certain workarounds exist that can be used to install it on devices with legacy BIOS firmware. It is also the last version of Microsoft Windows to have NTVDM to run 16-bit apps.