Nothing lasts forever. Even Windows 10 was initially touted to be the last version of Windows. Now, in preparation for the launch of the "next generation Windows," Microsoft has set an end date for Windows 10 Pro and Home support: October 14, 2025.

This "end date" is clearly stated in a recently updated official Microsoft document (via Nordic Hardware). There, it outlines when support for various builds will end, such as the current version (21H1), which will be supported until December 13, 2022. However, the end of support for Windows 10 in general is a little over four years from now.

"Microsoft will continue to support at least one semi-annual channel of Windows 10 until October 14, 2025," the document states.

This seems to confirm that Microsoft will release a new version of Windows. It may (and probably will) be called Windows 11, or it may simply be Windows or something else. [Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the Build conference last month, "Soon, we will share one of the most significant Windows updates of the past decade to unlock greater economic opportunities for developers and creators."

If that announcement is not Windows 11, another possibility is that Microsoft will overhaul Windows 10 with the oft-rumored Sun Valley update, which is less likely now that Windows 10's end date has been set. Until now, Microsoft has only listed end-of-support dates for specific versions of Windows 10 and not for the OS as a whole.

There were other hints. In addition to Nadella's comments, there is Microsoft's public event on June 24 at 11:00 a.m. ET; the announcement of the public date on Twitter was accompanied by a refreshed logo with light spilling over to form the number "11," and on YouTube, Microsoft has been showing a video of successive generations of Windows startup sounds in a slow-playing 11-minute video.

Today we saw several leaked images purportedly showing the Windows 11 UI:

There are many questions about what will be next for Windows. Assuming Microsoft releases a new version, will it be a free upgrade from Windows 10? And will this follow a service model with frequent feature updates, or will Microsoft go back to issuing major new releases every few years?

The answers to these questions are not yet available, but they will be soon, as the public event is less than two weeks away.