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

Beware the meeting room zombies

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.

There is only a fortnight or two remaining before the Surface Hub v1, like many Windows 10 devices, will have its support 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 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, according to Microsoft, "the Microsoft Teams Rooms app based on classic Teams will no longer be accessible."

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.

"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.

The ripples from the end of 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. ®