Microsoft to offer paid updates for Windows 7 beyond 2020

[nir]

Microsoft made a number of announcements today regarding Windows support. Windows 10 Enterprise and Education SKUs are getting 30 months of support now, but also, the company publicly said that Windows 7 users will be able to get paid security updates beyond the end of life in 2020.

 

Extended support for the OS ends on January 14, 2020, so businesses will be able to get Extended Security Updates (ESUs) until January 2023. According to Microsoft, these updates will be sold on a per-device basis, with a price increase every year. In other words, this isn't so you can stay on Windows 7 for three extra years; it's to make the move to Windows 10 easier.

 

It's only available for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise customers that use Volume Licensing, and Microsoft said there's a discount for any businesses that have Windows software assurance, Windows 10 Enterprise, or Windows 10 Education subscriptions. While the firm was very clear that certain circumstances will cause the ESUs to cost more or less, it did not provide any actual pricing.

 

Microsoft also announced some changes to Office 365 ProPlus support. It announced back in February that beginning in 2020, Office 365 will no longer work on Windows 8.1 and older systems. The company is now correcting this. You'll be able to install it on Windows 8.1 until January 2023, which is the end of extended support date for the OS. And if you're paying for ESUs on Windows 7, you can also install it until January 2023.

 

Source

[Skunk1966]

54 minutes ago, nir said:

Windows 7 users will be able to get paid security updates beyond the end of life in 2020

so they want to charge us for buying crap? They haven't managed to produce even 1 decent update for Windows 7 since April

[steven36]

LOL , ripoff  they gave  XP users 2 more years for free and Enterprise bought updates after that . Anything to make a dollar they don't even have a price for them so a normal pro user can't buy them.

Quote

 

The paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESUs) will be sold on a per-device basis, with the price increasing each year. These ESUs will be available to any Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise users with volume-licensing agreements, and those with Windows Software Assurance and/or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education subscriptions will get a discount. Office 365 ProPlus will continue to work on devices with Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023.

 

Before, Microsoft ran this program through its consulting practice, meaning the extended updates were available only to the largest customers with deep pockets -- and active Premier Support Agreements (in the case of Windows XP, at least). In the past, customers had to show Microsoft their plans for migrating off the no-longer-supported version of Windows. They needed to provide quarterly deployment milestones and a project completion date, in addition to paying multiple millions of dollars for extended patch coverage.

 

This time around, the ESU program is being run out of Microsoft's Volume Licensing Unit and Core Windows Engineering "is producing these updates like a product," Spataro explained.

 

"We want to encourage people to get off Windows 7, but we want to make it more than something punitive," he said.

 

Customers interested in finding out more about the Windows 7 ESUs should contact their partner or Microsoft account team for more information.

 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-offer-paid-windows-7-extended-security-updates/

 

Last time i used Windows 7 as my daily driver  was back in 2013 . The last 2 PC  I bought one came  with Windows 8  and 8.1witch i downgraded to windows 10 used it for a bit on it then i reverted back to windows 8.1 then i just put  linux on it  but i can still use Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 on it and the other one with windows 8.1 i downgraded to Windows 10 and reverted back to Windows 8.1 and i dual boot it with  Ubuntu Linux . It didn't cost me nothing because windows came with the price of the PC and good tell 2023 on updates lol. But i guess businesses with   Volume Licensing Agrements be happy and pay if they don't charge too much.

[mclaren85]

I don't even update my Windows 7. It is the version 2009 :)

[steven36]

Windows updates as a service for all  businesses, most businesses didn't have sense to upgrade too windows 8.1 and install a 3rd party start menu . The heck  with the consumers they can buy or pirate windows 10 and be beta testers for our paying customers because consumers dont buy windows very often. 

 

[Karlston]

Another take...

 

Microsoft plans to sell post-2020 support for Windows 7

 

(Computerworld - Gregg Keizer)

[steven36]

So much for windows 10 getting there billion users by 2023 and no one know what windows is going to be like by then i'm waiting to see .They could be better or worse . Microsoft will be happy ether way. they getting paid ether way.  I never bought a PC with Windows 7.  Microsoft were great back then if you bought a New PC with Vista with a big discount around that time they gave you a free Windows 7 DVD with a key i got one of those for one pc  and they also gave free Windows 7 home and pro  to education  and i had  a friend who access to that and he gave me a free key for 3 pcs . That's were they really messed up because many people took them retail keys for 3 pcs and put them on eBay real cheap. 

 

They still do it  with Windows 10 some people still have access to Windows 10 keys with 10 activations and sell them on ebay. lol  different but the same kind of thing.

Quote

 

That vendor is likely selling MSDN keys:

 

About MSDN Product Keys

They are genuine Microsoft product keys, they are actually retail licenses, but it is intended for a particular product channel either the Microsoft Software Developer Network (MSDN) or TechNet for IT Professionals who pay a subscription fee. The main purpose is for evaluation purposes. The great thing about them, unlike trial Microsoft software, MSDN or TechNet keys don't expire. Because the agreement under which the subscription is provided is a single license, none of the software should be distributed outside of it. Even though its $50,000 worth of licenses, it is for one person only to use and no one else. Unfortunately, regardless of the licensing terms, persons still abuse the program, either giveaway product keys or resell it on auction sites. Microsoft licenses it in good faith that customers won't do so, but I guess human nature wins out.

 

In your case, what probably happened is, you bought an MSDN licensed key, which carries up to 10 activations unlike full packaged retail licenses which only carry 1 activation. The person who sold it to you probably sold it to 10 other persons. Somewhere along the way, one of those persons might have installed it on a second system, activated it, because it went past 10 activation threshold, Microsoft detected it that it was being abused and blocked the key from further use.

 

 

Quote

 

No, those are NOT MSDN licenses for sure, since they do not identify as Retail, like MSDN licenses, but like OEM (slmgr -dli).

 

Also, do you just copy&paste stuff ? What do you mean "in your case" ? I did not buy the key, but the guy who guided me to the keys bought several and never had any issue with them, so he says.

 

 

Now they selling OEM keys it seems .

 

The Windows 7 MSDN Product Key i have  still works  in one my pcs 

 

[KXR75]

the nickname M$ is very appropriate for them.