Microsoft said last Fall that it would offer paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates on a per-device basis for big customers willing to pay for them after the company ends Windows 7 support on January 14, 2020. Microsoft officials wouldn’t talk about how much those updates would cost, beyond saying they’d get more expensive over time.
However, Microsoft has briefed some of its partners and salespeople about the cost of these Extended Support Updates (ESUs). And, as you’d expect, they’re not cheap, especially for customers who may want to apply them on multiple PCs. They’re even more expensive for customers using the Pro version of Windows than the Enterprise one.
These extended security updates are only available to enterprise and educiation users, so no luck if you’re an individual home user.That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these updates make their way into less than legal channels.
At least knowing the cost you can calculate the price of staying vs upgrading.
At the time the normal support ends, it will be a bit more than 6 years since Windows 8.1 was released, and around 4.5 years since Windows 10 was released, so it is not like the enterprises haven’t had time to plan an upgrade path, and i think it is fine that those insisting that Microsoft should keep supporting the old OS will have to compensate them for the effort.
The fact that they don’t offer this for consumers is probably that it would cost much more to handle than they would earn by doing it, considering how few would want to actually pay for it.
This being OSNews i expect we have a fair number of Windows 7 users here who will be happy to tell me why they will not upgrade to Windows 10 because it sucks for one reason or the other. Some of the reasons are probably even going to be fair, but the tech community is so small, and i bet even here the large majority have used Windows 10 for years.
It’s not always a matter of having time to plan an upgrade path, but a matter of whether certain software-driven machines or other highly specialized things of that nature *can* take the upgrade path at all. There are some industrial machines where I work that, no kidding, only got official support for Windows 7 drivers within the past three years. Anyone want to hazard a guess on how long it will take that company to make their software and drivers compatible with Windows 10? Compared to replacing a minimum of 5 devices, each at $600,000 or more, the price to keep those few computers patched is cheap. The industrial machine world moves slowly indeed, unfortunately, and the decision whether to upgrade those machines is out of my hands until official support comes, if it ever does.
Yeah, i am aware there are some out there tied to old versions because of dodgy software or hardware, i even recently saw XP in the wild. Seems pretty silly to buy equipment worth millions without a long term support contract though, but if competition is weak then i guess it can be hard to get proper support. If the problem remains after the paid support ends, i hope they can at least isolate them on a closed network.
This is where open source drivers could be of actual value to the customers.
At least the scale of the upgrade problem today is nowhere near the dark ages, like the countless companies stuck with IE6 for a loooong time because of intranet apps.
Industrial systems, whether embedded or with generic boxes, will likely have a slow migration path toward Windows 10. The reality is that the “computer” component it-self is only a small cost compared to everything else. So, these systems will likely remain on Windows 7 well beyond 2020-2021.
In many areas of the world, there are still as many Windows 7 systems as there are Windows 10 ones (according to some statistics). And, maybe their migration path will not be to Windows 10……Chrome OS may actually take a huge bite from Windows in the coming months.
What could be a worry for many deciding to remain on Windows 7 will be the stoppage of support from the vendors of applications coinciding with the end-of-support of Windows 7. Or maybe freezing them in time?
On the other hand, the official patches and security updates will likely find their way onto non-official distribution channels – albeit with associated risks in surfing onto these channels.
“These patches will not be available to the public who don’t know how to Google”…FTFY.
Because I have ZERO doubt that there will be someone offering a “Win 7 Unofficial Service Pack” or some such thing where they have gathered up the patches and bake them into some unattended installer, just as its not exactly hard to find those XP patches that came out after XP was EOLed.
That said I’m quite happy with 8.1 plus ClassicShell, unlike Win 10 Mistake Edition patches on 8.1 have been rock solid and with ClassicShell it makes a damn good workstation OS with a nice clean bloat free UI that just gets out of my way and let me work. Hopefully by the time 8.1 goes EOL Linux will have gotten their collective sh*t together and commercial software will “just work” without having to target Kernel Y, rev Z or someone at MSFT will grow a brain and realize letting Google drink their milkshake with the one two of ChromeOS and Android isn’t good for their long term survival and will give Nutella the boot, either one works for me over using the buggy AF mess that is Win 10.