China Prematurely Removes Windows 10 in Government Agencies – Special OS Version Retires a Year Ahead of Schedule

China's Ministry of State Security has told a number of state-linked organizations to remove a customized version of Windows 10 from their computers.

Bloomberg reports this, citing people familiar with the matter. The order accelerates a planned retirement that the software's developer had originally scheduled for February 2027.

The news immediately rippled through the markets. Shares of Chinese OS vendors Hunan Kylinsec and Archermind hit Shanghai's 20% daily trading limit, while China National Software climbed 10%.

Bloomberg sources attributed the directive to data security concerns but didn't specify what vulnerabilities Beijing is worried about. Officials haven't given any public comments on the matter.

The affected software is the government edition built by C&M Information Technologies (CMIT). This is a joint venture set up in 2016 between Microsoft and state-owned China Electronics Technology Group, with the Chinese side holding the majority stake.

The build is based on Windows 10 Enterprise but strips out OneDrive and other consumer-facing components. Some native functions are disabled, updates and activation stay inside China, and government users can swap Microsoft's standard cryptography for Chinese encryption algorithms. China Customs and Shanghai's Commission of Economy and Informatization were among the first pilot customers when the edition launched in 2017.

Microsoft ended mainstream Windows 10 support globally in October 2025. That left CMIT's edition as the only Windows version officially sanctioned for use in Chinese government agencies.

Microsoft is not aware of a security incident affecting this product

Microsoft added that the product continues to receive regular security updates.

Beijing has been pushing to replace foreign software and hardware for over a decade now. Windows 8 got banned from government procurement in 2014, a three-year program to replace foreign PCs in government offices kicked off in 2019, and in 2022 central agencies and state firms were ordered to scrap foreign-branded computers entirely.

The domestic stack built to meet that demand now includes Kylin V10, UnionTech's UOS, and Huawei laptops running HarmonyOS 5. The push for domestic alternatives has even reached the silicon level – Huawei's Qingyun desktops run on the homegrown Kirin 9000X processor.

None of this has made much of a dent in the consumer market, though. StatCounter data shows Windows accounted for 87.64% of Chinese desktop web traffic in July 2026.

Within that share, Windows 10 held 43.56% compared to 50.01% for Windows 11 – this ten months after mainstream support ended. Roughly two in five Chinese desktops are currently running an unsupported Microsoft OS, and CMIT's edition was meant to close exactly that gap for government users.

The scope of the new directive isn't clear yet.