News: 1758018205

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

The end of Windows 10 means early Surface Hub hardware will be bricking it

(2025/09/16)


Beware the meeting room zombies. We don't mean you when you're listening to a colleague reading out a 100-slide PowerPoint presentation, but some expensive Microsoft meeting room hardware that may be obsolete in a few short weeks.

Enterprises sticking with Windows 10 could shell out billions for continued support [1]READ MORE

There is only a fortnight or two remaining before the Surface Hub v1, like many Windows 10 devices, will have its support [2]abruptly pulled by Microsoft. October 14 marks the end of the road for Windows 10 Team edition. While the Surface Hub 2S can be upgraded to Windows 11 (or even equipped with a Surface Hub 3 Compute Cartridge), the Surface Hub v1 has no such options.

Microsoft [3]says : "Surface Hub v1 devices will no longer be supported. It's recommended to upgrade to a newer Surface Hub device."

Administrators have been scouring their fleets for Windows 10 hardware, but according to Andrew Francis, an applications engineering senior manager at Shure, "While the initial focus is often on personal devices like laptops and desktops, there are many other endpoints that need consideration. One key example is the Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) on a Windows 10 device."

MTR will stop supporting Windows 10 after October 14, as will the Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal. Many meeting rooms, therefore, have a large, black rectangle on the wall that could effectively be a ticking time bomb. The hardware won't suddenly stop working, but the flow of patches will cease, and, [4]according to Microsoft, "the Microsoft Teams Rooms app based on classic Teams will no longer be accessible."

[5]Microsoft patches the patch that can brick Surface Hub v1 screens

[6]What to do once your Surface Hub v1 becomes an 84-inch, $22K paperweight

[7]Beneath Microsoft's Surface event, AI spreads everywhere

[8]Half of bosses out of touch with reality, study shows

Francis said, "There are an estimated one million active MTRs worldwide, spanning both Windows and Android systems, but a significant proportion of the Windows-based units will not be upgradeable to Windows 11 due to hardware limitations.

Californian man so furious about forced Windows 11 upgrade that he's suing Microsoft [9]READ MORE

"The added complexity is that ownership of meeting-room technology often spans different departments – corporate IT, AV services, or even outsourced providers – which makes assessing the level of exposure to Windows 10 a bigger challenge than it first appears."

Shure – which makes and sells audio and collab products – would obviously be delighted to sell its IntelliMix Room Kits to users pondering what to do with their Surface Hub v1 hardware, but the point is a good one.

[10]

The ripples from the end of [11]Windows 10 support will spread far and wide, and not just to desktops and laptops, but also to the walls of meeting rooms where expensive hardware could end up as the silicon equivalent of zombies, lurching toward an uncertain future. ®

Get our [12]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/windows_10_esu_costs/

[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface-hub/surface-hub-windows10-eos-migration

[3] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface-hub/surface-hub-windows10-eos-migration

[4] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/rooms/rooms-lifecycle-support#microsoft-teams-app-end-of-availability-on-surface-hub-v1-and-2s-running-windows-10-team-edition

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/17/microsoft_surface_hub_v1/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/19/microsoft_surface_hub_v1/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/21/microsoft_surface_ai_copilot/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/16/microsoft_work_trends_index/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/11/microsoft_sued_over_premature_windows/

[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aMmJmUKjkyYUEbn3QjkDKAAAAAI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/windows_10_esu_costs/

[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



It's okay

Elongated Muskrat

Nobody ever used these things for anything useful anyway. Just like the "smart whiteboards" you see, which always have a small squiggle of permanent marker on one corner of them.

Re: It's okay

wolfetone

Had a look on eBay for one.

They're still upwards of £250 for what is essentially a brick.

Re: It's okay

SVD_NL

That's not entirely true, you can run it in [1]replacement pc mode , depending on how many hours the display has been on that could be a fairly solid deal (and many of those things haven't been used all too often).

Although the 55" version is a bit dated (1080p is a bit low dpi these days), and the 4k version requires two dp inputs, which isn't too common on tiny PCs.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface-hub/connect-and-display-with-surface-hub#replacement-pc-mode

Re: It's okay

MatthewSt

Sshh! I'm hoping to pick up a bargain!

Re: It's okay

Fred Daggy

Can they make a nice dumb terminal, for hooking up to Plex or similar?

Or ... just put the aforementioned Ubuntu on it and Plex directly there? No idea of the storage space on the device.

All is not lost

Henry Hallan

https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Microsoft/SurfaceBook

Ubuntu is available too, apparently :-)

use Winserver

williamyf

First off, this article is a dupe:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/19/microsoft_surface_hub_v1/

As I, and many other commenters said there, installing server 2019 or 2022 on thowe behemoths will elimninate all security risks until early 2030 or 2032 respectively.

And drivers shall not be a problem (especially with server 2019)

Now, whether the cloudy/portal/online part of the service will be happy with that change, is a whole other issue.

Blackjack

Meanwhile Android 6 is still supported, kind of, you can still finds Apps in Google Play that run on Android 6.

Why is this even a thing?

Ropewash

People willingly buy into a hardware setup that is dependent on the provider maintaining support but doesn't guarantee that support? Or is it directly in the contract that you're going to have a room full of pretty bricks after X years?

Imagine buying a hammer that requires you to sign into the cloud before it will hit a nail. Oh brave new world..

And there's the con

steviebuk

Microsoft says: "Surface Hub v1 devices will no longer be supported. It's recommended to upgrade to a newer Surface Hub device."

More way for them to take your money. Arses

Will they run ...

Paul Hovnanian

... systemd?

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