Microsoft is ending assist for its ChromeOS competitor Home windows 11 SE. The corporate will formally cease offering "software program updates, technical help and safety fixes" in October 2026, in keeping with an up to date assist doc noticed by NeoWin.
When it was introduced in 2021, Home windows 11 SE was pitched as a simplified, light-weight model of Microsoft's working system for the classroom. Chromebooks and ChromeOS gadgets are extensively utilized in faculties world wide, so it made sense that Microsoft would wish to provide one thing aggressive. Home windows 11 SE, and the Floor Laptop computer SE that launched alongside it, have been the corporate's newest try and do exactly that.
Clearly the plan didn't work, as evidenced by Microsoft's resolution to shutdown Home windows 11 SE simply 5 years later. The working system was obtainable on different low-cost gadgets, however it doesn't seem that it acquired almost the same-sized viewers as ChromeOS. If it had, Microsoft possible wouldn't be dumping it so unceremoniously.
Home windows 11 SE isn't the primary time Microsoft has tried to spin-off a extra environment friendly model of Home windows, although it did look like essentially the most thought out. For instance, the corporate has additionally tried Home windows 10 S (which lives on as "S Mode" in Home windows 11) and the never-launched Home windows 10X, a streamlined model of Home windows for dual-screen gadgets.
Whereas Home windows 11 SE gadgets will work after Microsoft's October 2026 cut-off, the corporate recommends "transitioning to a tool that helps one other version of Home windows 11 to make sure continued assist and safety."
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsoft-is-killing-its-failed-chromeos-competitor-windows-11-se-200050553.html?src=rss