Microsoft is killing its failed ChromeOS competitor, Home windows 11 SE

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 accordance with an updated support document noticed by NeoWin.

When it was announced 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 broadly utilized in faculties world wide, so it made sense that Microsoft would need to supply 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 did not work, as evidenced by Microsoft’s determination to shutdown Home windows 11 SE simply 5 years later. The working system was out there on different low-cost gadgets, nevertheless it would not seem that it acquired almost the same-sized viewers as ChromeOS. If it had, Microsoft possible would not be dumping it so unceremoniously.

Home windows 11 SE is not 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 Windows 10 S (which lives on as “S Mode” in Home windows 11) and the never-launched 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.”