As of 2 November 2026, runtime maintenance is a concrete planning task rather than an occasional upgrade conversation. Microsoft’s current support policy lists .NET 10 as a supported long-term-support release and requires systems to stay current on patches within a supported release.
Inventory what actually runs
Record the runtime used by each application, its container base image or host, and its deployment owner. Check production rather than relying only on a project’s target framework. A build agent and an application host can be on different update schedules.
Include background services and administrative utilities. A rarely used export tool can remain operationally important even when nobody remembers its last feature change.
Turn review into work
Give lifecycle reviews a place on the product calendar. Compare the official policy with the inventory, create upgrade tasks early and allow time for package compatibility checks. Recheck the policy when scheduling; dates and servicing details should not be copied once and assumed permanent.
Treat patch deployment as a repeatable operation with verification and recovery steps. Major upgrades may need broader testing, but small updates still need an accountable owner.
A useful completion criterion is simple: every running component has a supported destination, a responsible person and a planned verification path. That turns lifecycle information into a manageable engineering commitment.
Reference
Microsoft’s current .NET support policy, checked on 2 November 2026.