Microsoft Will Charge for Windows 10 Security Updates in 2025

Haven't they always done this for corporate customers with EoL products?

Yep
Yeah, this is nothing new.
- False; it's now going to be offered to consumers, too.
  
  That's the entire article, you're welcome.
- The change this time around is not 3 more years having to code for IE9 😄
In this case machines sold as recently as 2020 are not supported and for the for the last 8 years since 10 came out old computers were less obsolete than in prior eras as SSD were already common and other than gaming or specialized apps computer software hadn't become notably heavier.

Basically many of those now forcibly obsolete machines bought as late as 2020 would have been expected to be in service for years yet either as primary machines or hand me downs. Basically much removed will be heard.

Phrased differently: Microsoft announces the end of support for a product. If you want to pay for it, they will make an exception and continue to support it just for you.

I understand people dislike Windows 11, but complaining about life cycle management isn't going to help that.

Will this lead to pirated security patches? What a strange timeline.
- This is absolutely nothing new, and the workaround is usually just a small registry tweak so Windows Update pulls from the extended support patches "channel". Same thing happened with Vista, 7, and 8.
  
  Alternatively there are ways to download from the Windows Update servers using plenty of third party tools. It's a neccessity if you're going to streamline patches into your install media to save the post install mess of waiting for it to download and install all the updates that have come out since they first made the install .iso
- I'm pretty sure Microsoft has been patching pirated copies of Windows for decades at this point.
Should have figured it was clickbait. They've done this with several previous versions after EOL security support ended AFAIK.

Is this news? This is expected, it's what they did with 7 and XP after those reached full EOL, which happened on the day they said it would for 7 at the time 7 launched, and a few years after the date they said when XP launched.

The 2025 date has been known since 2015 when 10 launched and is the standard Microsoft ten year support cycle for operating systems.

And yet, in spite of this, every single time the tech media published these breathless and shocked articles about how horrible it is that Microsoft is suddenly dropping support for their ten year old systems.

These articles are like clockwork. I'd say we'll be getting them for Windows 11 in about seven or eight years, but they have a new "modern" lifestyle they've adopted for it that's more based on last major update release or something and it'll probably come sooner than that this time around.

Although I generally agree with the sentiment the problem here is that most computers can't be upgraded to windows 11 and that pretty much never happened before.
- Doubt that most cannot run W11. Unless you have a CPU before 2018 you should have TPM 2.0 and if you do not, you can bypass that requirement with 1 reg value. This officiall bypass still requires TPM 1.2, but most probably have it.
Generally I would agree with you, as the 10 year lifecycle you described is what's to be expected. With Windows 10 however, Microsoft said on release it would be the last Windows and they move to windows-as-a-service. So Windows 10 not being the last Windows and the upgrade path being closed by default for many older PCs is newsworthy.
- Microsoft never said that, though. One person said that and tech media ran with it like it was gospel (and Microsoft didn't correct it, which is absolutely their fault, but still, that was never an official statement but apparently something that was just poorly phrased)
It's different this time because of the tpm + other requirements of W11.

In the past it was never a big deal and people who didn't upgrade from xp or 7 could be labeled as luddites because MS provided an easy and even free upgrade path.

But for the first time ever, anything older than 7 years isn't supported.

I live in a 3rd world country and I can promise you that this is going to lead to a large percentage of the population using an insecure version of Windows 10 or just using mobile devices.

I doubt many people here will switch to Linux, but I can only hope. Maybe businesses will do that instead of buying new hardware. Recently, I saw a shop using Banana Pis as their checkout terminal.

Every time this has occurred before, there's been a very easy registry tweak to make Windows Update pull these "paid extended support" patches for free.
Is this because the free upgrade to Windows 11 is too large of a download?
- MANY devices have hardware that's just outright not supported by windows 11. Even CPUs just a few years old aren't supported. I don't own a single device that supports Windows 11, and my stuff isn't exactly ancient. I imagine poorer countries have resold/used hardware in the majority of cases that aren't new enough for it
- Or a lot of existing machines that meet Win 7's specs running Win 10 aren't compatible with Win 11.
- In my case the Intel Core i7 processor family is not supported for windows 11. Granted my rig is over 6 years old but it still does everything I want it to and I have no reason to upgrade.
- Yeah it’s what the other person said essentially.
  
  If your computer is more than 4-5 years old, then you likely can’t upgrade to windows 11.
  
  My computer made the cut by a single cpu generation. If it were a year older I’d be out of luck.
  
  My computer is still way more power than I need and will have it for years to come.
  
  If my computer were just a year older, I’d be in the same boat if not needing a new computer for years, but not have access to a secure system.
  
  In addition, i can afford a new computer, but I wouldn’t spend the money on a new computer just to have security updates.

So, this has been a standard phase of the Windows product lifecycle for 20+ years now. It doesn't really answer the problem with Windows 10 retirement and unsupported hardware on 11+ but it shouldn't be a shock to anyone.

Well, not supporting certain high end cpu's for Windows 11 is a problem. They are forcing me to either switch cpu, AND mb or not get Windows 11. The last one is fine with me, but now they stop support for Windows 10... That kinda rubs me the wrong way.
- You're welcome to try Linux, it's free, easy to use, easy and free to update, and stable. I use Ubuntu because I prefer something I don't have to mess around with too much.
- As the other reply said, I'd definitely give Linux a try. Even the gaming situation has gotten a lot better though it's still not perfect.
  
  The CPU thing with 11 is kinda dumb but I do see why they did it. They wanted users running all the virtualization-based security features that were optional in 10. Some of those depend on a feature to minimize the amount of times the virtualized parts of the OS needs to swap to the hypervisor and back when it needs to change between user and kernel mode memory pages. All the Intel CPUs supported and all but the earliest AMD CPUs supported have a hardware feature called MBEC/GMET that speeds this up drastically. Unsupported CPUs (and AMD Zen+ which are supported) have to fall back to an emulated version of this feature but the performance penalties are high. When I was running an AMD Zen+ architecture CPU the difference in game performance between virtualization-based security being enabled/disabled was often in the range of 15-20%. It's likely the earlier CPUs from Intel and AMD suffered from far worse impacts. If I had to guess Microsoft opted for the bad press from incompatible CPUs instead of being inundated with news about Windows 11 being dogshit slow.

That's great! Means it won't update randomly without my permission anymore.

Hahahaha, I love this perspective.

I've lost more hours to updates than I can count. Never lost any hours to being hacked...because my security is layered.
Actually, it will likely "upgrade" you to Windows 11 whether you want it to or not.
- My w10 machine says it doesn't meet minimum requirements for w11. I'm safe!

Good. That'll be the day I finally update to ~~windows 11~~ Linux

The Microsoft Blogpost keeps mentioning customers and I've seen it mentioned a few times in this thread, but it almost seems like they're gearing this towards businesses and not 100% average consumers. Then again, they do mention 365 subscribers so maybe they are. Either way it's such a waste that an OS would shutter anti-virus support for anyone who doesn't pay a subscription.

Also, a ton of people here keep saying how this will drive users to Linux. No, no it wont. It isn't the first shitty thing that Microsoft has done to their OS, and it won't be the last. Older and average people won't take time out of their day to swap OS's and learn terminals.

It's aimed at the U.S. Government. There's been an absolutely massive shift to get to Windows 10, updating systems as old as Windows 2000 to get there. MS advertised Windows 10 as their final OS, eventually backtracking and releasing Windows 11 and will continue to make iterative releases in the future. But for a moment The Government believed it and thought it was a great time to bite the bullet and go all in. Now that most major systems are upgraded to W10, it's doubtful from my perspective that U.S.G. will be able to support or migrate to W11 or even W12, meaning they will most likely pay a lot of money over many many years to keep MS providing security updates for the W10 platform.
- Something something promissory estoppel!

I'm going to flip that back on them, Microsoft will have to pay me to update my OS.

Hasn't this been a standard practice for decades? An absolute nothingburger.

It's new for the consumer market, with past versions of Windows it's only been available to the biz side.
- So it's even better than before?
- There's no reason for anyone but the non-tech savvy to care about this. Just like every time before it'll be a simple registry tweak to make Windows Update pull from the extended support channel.
  
  Now there's an alternative if you want to do it officially or aren't as tech savvy. Don't see this as anything but a win, despite the way the article is framing it.

Gonna be a lot of unsecured PCs about then, thanks to that ridiculous TPM requirement.

I've been a computer geek and programmer for 35 years. I'm the one my entire extended family asks for IT help. I'm even consulted by the IT department at work.

And I have no idea how to get Windows 11 running on my home PC. It has a TPM but I have secure boot in BIOS set to "Other OS" because I dual boot with Linux. I'm not getting rid of Linux, that's my daily driver. I just use Windows to play games. What does MS expect me to do exactly, get a second PC for Windows?
- If you currently have a Windows 10 machine, you can use NT Lite to edit the win11 iso. You can remove some of the bloatware, turn off some of the annoying features, and disable the tpm and secure boot requirements entirely.
- Yeah, pretty sure that's what stopped mine upgrading as well. I'm not messing with the boot settings, because I don't want a machine that suddenly can't boot.
- Dunno which games you play, but Proton is incredible these days, and you can play just about anything with it (Protondb will give you an idea).
  
  In fact, there have been several cases where the Windows version of a game with Proton plays better than the native Linux runtime for the same game.
- 35 years? cmon man, use your brain then. Install win11 on USB with Rufus, check the box to bypass tpm requirements, install windows. You can force it on anything like any other os. I hate windows 11, but you're being a little dense here.
  
  https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement
Lmao, I'll be on w10 till they release a not-shit OS again 😄

This shit contributes to electronic waste.

It would be a REALLY simple thing to implement for longer and get the PR boost/spin. considering there are still so many devices that are working that don't support newer software. BRand loyalty is waning and windows is competing with chrome books. That's the shit k-12 are getting and most basic people. Give yourself at least a bit of an edge ffs!

But nah public hasn't made a big fuss about that so of course they won't elect to make better choices for the environment

This was supposed to be the "last" windows operating system they'd ever release.

Microsoft never officially said this. It was a random engineer
Last good one

Still not updating until you let me keep my taskbar where it is.

Are you referring to the centered taskbar?
- No.

Fuck off Microsoft.

I did not have that on my bingo card, but I realize I should have

Man I'm glad i shifted to linux. Not because I'm some open source zealot, but because I don't wanna deal with Microsoft's bullshit and the absolute awful look of windows 11. Given how well linux works these days, I'm very rarely having issues with it, and I only ever really use windows for vr so that i can have a desktop overlay.

Isn’t this what they did with Windows 7/8.1 through ESU?

And Windows XP although I think they were pushed to start it with XP.

prime enshittification.

"subscribe or die" is our future.

Seize the means of computation people!

yeah no crap they've been doing this for decades now lmao

I mean, that's not exactly news. Windows 10 came out in 2015. It will stop receiving updates after 10 years just like every Windows version has.

Wtf 2015???
- Time flies
I disagree that it's so simple, 10 is different because for a long time it was unclear 11 was ever going to happen, the biyearly releases were the new versions. For most of the other Windows versions they didn't stop receiving security update until well after the next version or two were out. 11 will have only been out for 4 years when support for 10 theoretically stops.

Arrrrrr?

🐧

They really want everyone on 11 don't they.

I use 11 for work, and so I tried it at home to really dive into the issues I might have. I generally prefer Linux but have always kept my daily drivers Windows....well until last Friday. I had the explorer shell crash on me causing data loss and really was the last straw. Wiped everything and went to Linux, I'm tired of the games Microsoft. I tolerated your bullshit for YEARS because the core of the OS usually "just worked"....except in recent years that's not true and I don't feel like my computer is "my computer" when windows 10+ is on it.
- It may have seemed like that, but killing explorer.exe doesn't cause data loss. None of the running applications are spawned by explorer, you just use it to launch them as separate processes.
- went to Linux, I’m tired of the games
  
  Linux actually has really good support for games these days
  
  /(not sure of appropriate tag for dumb "joke")
- I've literally restarted explorer before to accomplish certain workarounds (like getting the old right click menu back) and had zero issues with data loss.
  
  I don't see how you could have lost data because the shell crashed when I intentionally killed it and had zero interruptions to my workflow. I'm pretty sure it's just a way to interact with the file system.
- Windows 11 also drove me to Linux again...
  
  Although to be fair, it came pre-installed on my new laptop and I was just too lazy to wipe it and switch over. My (now) backup laptop has been running ubuntu for years now, same with my desktop before it died.
  
  But I got about 6 months of windows 11 after de-cluttering it. Still wasn't enough to convince me to keep it.
- I do this shit for a living. Unless you were actively doing file moves then explorer crashing didn't cause the data loss.
  
  You really need to do a health check on your drive(s), and you can install Teracopy for faster file move operations that aren't reliant on explorer staying up.
Why would they want to support an OS that they're not even selling anymore?
- Continued money stream.
  Better than single payments because more predictable.
- That seems like a them problem though… shitty business model that’s already pushing users away
Remember when TPMS is an optional security feature ;-)
- Tire pressure monitor sensor
- It's still optional

Well, I've been putting off switching to Linux for a long time now. I guess Microsoft is going to force my hand.

Are there any 10-year-old Linux distributions that are still getting free support?
- Literally most of them. All the big ones like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch, etc. are 10+ years old and still get updates pretty much daily.
  
  Debian had its 30th birthday back in September, actually.
- There are free major upgrades though.
- Actually, yes.
  
  Debian has been supported since the early 90s, but admittedly that’s the only one I could name off the top of my head.
Or you can wait for the inevitable workaround to make Win 10 pull updates from the extended support channel for free.

Next personal GFX update I'm going AMD and installing Linux on my gaming PC no matter what

But I get it, you don't want to maintain old builds forever. And given that certain systems still run Windows XP you have to force people and money is the only thing that talks

The problem with Linux builds is game compatibility. Many are windows only. Sure you can use Wine or Proton, but that isn't everyone. And they don't seem stable for long.

Steam UI is a good step forward.
- I'll just not play those. But anticheats might suck
Why wait?
- Running windows 10 no issues so far. And heard Wayland has Nvidia issues
Yeah good luck with games, support on Linux has gotten way better over the years but it's still severely lacking (mainly due to anticheats or game developers intentionally not supporting Linux). Even with games that you can play on Linux, they require an annoying amount of tweaking to actually get running.

Steam Deck gives me hope for Linux gaming but I don't think it'll ever have as much support as Windows gaming, in fact a surprisingly high amount of games have a Linux detection system that blocks Linux players because fuck you I guess...

But you can't really blame Linux for this, it's mostly the fault of aggressive anticheat that shouldn't exist in the first place, or shitty companies wanting to block Linux players from playing their games.

As for Nvidia, I've personally had no issue and in fact I run into more situations where having an Nvidia graphics card is better – encoding (great for recording games) and DLSS, for example. But that's just my experience, I'm sure it's just coincidental because I don't play that many games anymore.

Good thing by then I'll hopefully have upgraded computer, again, and be on the Mint train (or whatever distro tickles my fancy). I definitely gotta get on trying out a few on my backlog of distros to try on a VM before then.

While you certainly can run a Linux distro on a VM, why not just run a bootable flash drive with your distro of choice?
- Personal preference. Plus, the only spare thumb drive I have is missing the protective case that shields the actual memory components.

German Government is still paying for XP and Win7 Updates, because some software just isn't available on newer OS's.

Oh no!

Anyway, think how great gaming on Linux will be in 2 years.

My only holdback is modding - it's tougher to do without dancing among wine configs. Really hoping for some innovation there.

I mean, it is great now, it'll just keep getting better.
- Exactly!
I was dualboxing windows and endeavouros until I realized I was getting objectively superior performance for all games on linux. Deleted windows entirely and haven't looked back since.
This will drive people to macOS before it drives them to Linux. I’m calling it now.

You can extend your security on deez nuts

Yarr harr fiddle di dee...

Almost all distros are alright with me. Do what you want because Linux is free.
- Yes, but I like gaming without having to tweak things for every game. Proton is looking pretty good thanks to the Steam Deck. Hopefully it'll be a very solid option when it comes time for me to make a decision.
  
  Unfortunately, a lot of my music software and hardware is incompatible with both Linux and W11

They can secure Deez nutz

My daily driver is an endeavorOS install, the only reason I keep windows 10 on a small SSD is for GeForce Now since the windows app is the only platform they provide that supports streams at 120+fps and 1440p. My windows 10 install is just a GeForce Now thin client ever since I got att fiber.

My windows install is just for piracy

So pirate Windows 11 or switch to Linux?

Or just run Win 10 forever.

I've still got customers on Windows XP.
Join the Free World!

Kinda bullshit, if you have made the patches anyway, just release them you bums. It's your own fault for repeatedly making shittier OS's that nobody wants to swap to.

Not how business works.
if it was, this would be a literal utopia.
- Perfect, yeah gimme that

Guess I'm putting linux back on my laptop.. Only kept Windows 10 on it, on the rare occasion where having windows without having to spin up a VM was useful to begin with, so its not a major loss i guess.

Just hope battery managements gotten better than the last time I tried, cause god damn that really ruined my battery in no time.

Anecdotally, I'm running Kubuntu on a Dell 7280 with a 4 cell battery as my personal computer, which gets an hour or two of websurfing and home network experimentation per day, and I'm having to charge up once or twice a week. I dunno how that stacks up to other devices or distros, but I really barely think about my battery.
- My laptop can last a solid 8 hours or more web browsing with windows.
  
  when I put linux (ubuntu for the record) on it, it got a whopping 30 minutes before it needed charging. and it royally fucked my battery health to the point it wouldnt work without being plugged in to the power supply constantly (edit. after a week of use, to be clear, not instantly). Thankfully Dell replaced my laptop for unrelated warranty issue and I got a new one with a fresh new unfucked battery.
Then you're probably not going to need the security updates if that's all you're using it for.
- Anything connected to the internet needs to be up to date for security fixes.

This is the best news Linux could ever get, it’ll speed up development by 10 or 11 fold!

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Just be aware that the tech giant will force you to dip into your wallet to keep accessing security fixes and small bug hunts.

The current version, 22H2, will be the last of its kind for Windows 10, though it will still get monthly security updates all the way through the OS’ planned death date.

Businesses can purchase yearly ESU subscriptions, though Microsoft still has yet to detail how individual users can buy into the program.

Windows 8 lasted about 10 years before it stopped receiving free security updates, but the company decided not to provide ESU service to the much less popular OS.

The Taiwanese outlet The Commercial Times (via Tom’s Hardware) reported last week that Microsoft could release Windows 12 in June 2024.

Eventually, the only way you’ll be able to keep using Microsoft’s latest operating system is to strap yourself into a cramped, economy seat on the tech giant’s big AI passenger jet.

The original article contains 525 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

It's fairly reasonable imo...

As if I needed even more reason to leave Windows

Doesn't this violation of customer service laws or something.

Remember that million page document people accept without reading?
- The one that isn't valid in most courts?

Looks like no more Windows 10 updates

I mean, yes, that's what happens 🤷‍♂️

I thought this was when they’re ending support for Windows 10. Does this mean that they normally continue security updated for longer, and this is an exception?

Winblows

Now there's an epithet that brings me back to the old Mac vs. PC flamewars in the late nineties

https://youtu.be/rLXWqdry3Qc?si=LItEsEzrkK2DTL2D

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/rLXWqdry3Qc?si=LItEsEzrkK2DTL2D

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.