TECH NEWS – After Windows 10 security updates, you can get additional support for the operating system, but you’ll have to pay Microsoft for it.

The Redmond-based company will support Windows 10 until October 14, 2025. That’s almost two years away, but if you want to stay on it after that, you’ll have to sign up for Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. This will no longer be free: according to Bleeping Computer, Windows 10 22H2 will be the last Windows 10 release. After that, LTSC (Long-Term-Servicing Channel) is the solution, but this is mainly used on PCs for industrial and medical purposes.

Microsoft hasn’t announced pricing yet, so we don’t know how much they might charge for ESU subscriptions. Organizations using the extended Enterprise Edition license and running Windows 7 paid $25 in the first year and $100 per device in the third year. So, after fall 2024 (until then Windows 10 22H2 is officially supported), the business sector can not book the cost, but rather upgrade to Windows 11 (although officially this requires at least Intel Core i3/5/7/9-8000 processor and TPM 2.0 support, but you can use third-party solutions…). What’s new is that this is the first time that non-professional users can participate in the ESU program…

But don’t forget the results of the latest Steam survey. 53.53% of Valve’s platform users (and survey respondents) are still running Windows 10, so the rate of migration to Windows 11 may be slower than Microsoft expects. It may also be because of the official system requirements that users are not inclined to switch to the latest operating system. In general, every other OS from Microsoft is a bit weak: after XP, Vista was not good, but 7 was great, then 8 needed a major update to not be too mobile, then 10 hit form again (see 53% usage on Steam)… and 11 might be weak again.

Paid OS updates. Hmmm…

Source: PCGamer