Enterprise prospects might want to pay dearly to stay with Home windows 10. A license for the Prolonged Safety Updates (ESU) program is bought as a subscription. For the primary yr, the associated fee is $61. For yr two, the value doubles, and it doubles once more for yr three. That Microsoft weblog submit would not do the maths on these, in all probability as a result of the entire is uncomfortably excessive. A 3-year ESU subscription will value $61 + $122 + $244, for a complete of $427 per PC.
Additionally: How to upgrade your ‘incompatible’ Windows 10 PC to Windows 11
This system carefully resembles what Microsoft supplied for Home windows 7’s end-of-support date in 2020, though the Home windows 10 worth is 22% greater than the $350 whole value of that program, which began at $50 for yr one.
Do not suppose you possibly can sport the system by leaping into this system after sitting out for a yr or two. “ESUs are cumulative,” Microsoft stated, and you may’t purchase yr two until you’ve got already paid for yr one.
Training prospects are getting off a lot simpler. The foundations are the identical, however the worth for the primary yr is $1. It doubles to $2 within the second yr and doubles once more to $4 within the third and remaining yr, for a grand whole of … $7 per PC.
Additionally: Yes, you can upgrade that old PC to Windows 11, even if Microsoft says no. These readers proved it
Directors who need to get a head begin can join the primary yr of an ESU license as early as October 2024, one yr earlier than the precise end-of-support date.
As was the case with Home windows 7, Redmond actually needs enterprise prospects to improve to Home windows 11, which explains the excessive price ticket. Microsoft’s April bulletins speak simply as a lot about what you aren’t getting with an ESU license as they do in regards to the updates themselves.