Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system is nearing the end of its life. Come October 2025, support for the operating system ends officially. Microsoft announced that it is going to offer ESU, Extended Security Updates, for at least three years.

This means that organizations and also home users may extend the life of their systems by three years. ESU requires a subscription, and Microsoft has just revealed information about that subscription. Some information is still missing though.

Extended Security Updates were introduced for Windows 7 when the operating system neared its end of life. Microsoft offered the service to organizations only at the time. Organizations paid $50 in the first year, $100 in the second, and $200 in the third to receive these updates. Some clever folks discovered ways to get these updates on their home machines.

The popularity of Windows 7 forced Microsoft's hand. Windows 8, not nearly as popular as Windows 7, died without any ESU offer from Microsoft.

Windows 10: ESU pricing

Windows 10 is equally popular. It is still the most used version of Windows, even though its successor, Windows 11, has been on the market for three years. Not all Windows 10 devices can be upgraded to Windows 11. Experts estimate that the number of incompatible Windows 10 devices is in the hundreds of millions.

Microsoft announced some time ago that it would offer Extended Security Updates for Windows 10. This time, it did not exclude home users from the offer. In other words: anyone running Windows 10 can extend support by three years.

This comes at a price, which Microsoft revealed this week. Unfortunately, only for businesses and organizations.

Organizations have three options to extend update support for Windows 10: 5-by-5 activation key, cloud-based activation, or Windows 365 subscription-based activation.

For a 5-by-5 subscription key: It is available for $61 per device for the first year. This price doubles each year, meaning that organizations have to pay $122 in the second year and $244 in the third to continue receiving extended security updates.

The second option is only available for Windows 10 PCs accessed via Windows 11 Cloud PCs. These PCs are automatically included in ESU at no additional cost to the organization.

The third and final option is available for organizations that use Microsoft cloud-based update management solutions such as Microsoft Intune. These may get a 25% discount on ESU licensing. This drops the price in the first year to $45 per user (up to five devices). The price is still doubling each year.

What about home users?

Microsoft did not reveal any information on the ESU pricing for home users. It is still more than a year before the official end of support for the operating system. Clearly, Microsoft wants organizations and home users to upgrade to Windows 11 instead. This is the first recommendation of the article. The second is to purchase a new PC with Windows 11.

Home users who cannot upgrade to Windows 11 officially and do not want to (or can) buy a new PC face a tough decision. ESU would give them three extra years of updates.

Another option to extend support is to use the services of 0Patch. The third-party micro-patching business creates security patches for various Microsoft products that are no longer supported by Microsoft. It will do the same for Windows 10 once it runs out. This does require a subscription as well, but it is available for about $25 per year.

Closing Words

Extended Security updates are not cheap. A three year subscription is available for $427 ($315 for the cloud-based option). If the pricing is similar for home users, it would make the extension quite expensive.

What about you? Do you run Windows 10 and plan to extend its life through ESU?