Thursday, April 4th 2024
Windows 10 Security Updates to Cost $61 After 2025, $427 by 2028
Microsoft Windows 10 is an operating system quite a few people don't want to upgrade from, and some don't even consider the move to Windows 11 an upgrade. This is especially true for businesses or other organizations that aren't sold on Windows 11. Microsoft already has a retirement plan in place, which sees the company discontinue regular security updates for the operating system on October 14, 2025, but you can keep getting these updates beyond that date, for a price.
Under the Extended Security Updates (ESU) plan for Windows 10, you can purchase a year's worth regular "patch Tuesday" security updates at $61, and keep Windows 10 alive till October 2026. Here's where it gets crazy—the price of ESU doubles each year. The October 2026 to October 2027 leg will cost you $122. This doubles again the following year, with the final October 2027 to October 2028 leg costing $244. If you plan on keeping your Windows 10 through till 2028, it will cost you a total of $427 for the three years, per machine. ESU licenses resemble the OS's main license—you either buy them electronically through the Microsoft Store or Windows 365; or as 25-digit codes in retail.
Source:
PC World
Under the Extended Security Updates (ESU) plan for Windows 10, you can purchase a year's worth regular "patch Tuesday" security updates at $61, and keep Windows 10 alive till October 2026. Here's where it gets crazy—the price of ESU doubles each year. The October 2026 to October 2027 leg will cost you $122. This doubles again the following year, with the final October 2027 to October 2028 leg costing $244. If you plan on keeping your Windows 10 through till 2028, it will cost you a total of $427 for the three years, per machine. ESU licenses resemble the OS's main license—you either buy them electronically through the Microsoft Store or Windows 365; or as 25-digit codes in retail.
84 Comments on Windows 10 Security Updates to Cost $61 After 2025, $427 by 2028
TPM is a weird requirement
Bitlocker all one needs is a flash drive to use just as it's always been lol
I can certainly understand anyone who don't have the fastest PC would like to hold on to their Windows 10 over getting a more laggy Windows 11, not to mention all games and software which may not work as well, just as many were clinging to Windows 7, and XP before that.
But both Windows 11 and 10 are a mess in my opinion. Whenever I use any of them I need to google where did they hide that setting now?
I do miss the good old days of Windows 98 in terms of usability. Sure it was unstable, very unstable, though.
But the overall "best" version (when it was supported) was probably not XP as many talk about, I would argue it was the often overlooked "XP 64-bit", which was actually Windows Server 2003. Best in terms of usability, stability and performance. All you need to do is set your network connections to being "metered", and then disable windows update for metered connections. The only downside I know of is if you rely on something like Outlook, it will stop automatically refreshing your inbox, because it's "metered". ;)
I love it when people keep saying metered does anything to updates service lol
That does nothing to the update service It runs and runs like the energizer bunny and keeps communicated nonstop
Even if you disable the update service WaaSMedicSvc kicks it back on soon after and now it doesn't thanks to the app :cool:
Well nothing will get better on win-12 or what ever MS ends up calling 24h2 or it's successor
Just more mandates.
But then again that is why a lot of people didn't like win-11 enough to update to it hehe
I did because it really made no difference 10 and 11 sux so net zero loss using 11 :sleep:
Finally with Windows 10 eventually becoming good after half a decade, and a high % of users are on it, what do Microsoft do? They decide to kill it and bring the old split user base problems back. Not only that they announced they going back to more rapid OS updates. So by the time the last stragglers of 10 upgrade, 11 will either be on its last legs or already expired.
Can see Microsoft are busy fixing various UI regressions they introduced in 11, they wont all get remedied of course, but I expect by the time 11 resembles something usable, it will be 12 getting released.
So why are they rollout major OS updates again? Seems they wanted to copy over more mobile OS UI design from Apple, pressure from hardware industry to obsolete old kit. The actual enhancements in 11 were planned for 10 previously and could have been put in 10, the reasons in my view are primarily UI and hardware related.
So far all I see is not having to undergo annoying forced updates every now and then, which is obviously a good thing for me.
Ps. I have been using Win10 Home since 2015 and never install any antivirus software. Not sure if windows defender's doing an excellent job or my usage is just low-risk.
Windows 11 (and likely 12) are seemingly about pushing crapola few have any use case for on to users if they like it or not?
Microsoft all in on "AI" and they don't care if you want or have any use for it..?
Well atm AI is not tough to get rid of no telling when it will need altering though but I'm sure Brink will be on it hehe