Microsoft revealed final yr that it’s going to charge consumers $30 for a year of additional safety updates to Home windows 10. Now, it’s permitting shoppers to enroll into its Prolonged Safety Updates (ESU) freed from cost forward of the Home windows 10 finish of help on October 14th. However there’s a catch.
Customers can have three choices to get ESU on their private Home windows 10 PCs, and the free possibility includes enabling Home windows Backup to sync your settings and folders to the cloud. Home windows Backup makes use of OneDrive, so whereas it’s doable to remain beneath the 5GB of free storage, if in case you have a whole lot of information saved domestically within the Paperwork folder you then’d must buy further area for Home windows Backup to work absolutely. That’s the catch free of charge prolonged updates on Home windows 10.
The opposite two choices to get ESU on Home windows 10 contain paying the $30 price for a yr of updates, or redeeming 1,000 Microsoft Reward factors. Microsoft is including an enrollment wizard to Home windows 10 in July that may have these three choices. “As soon as you choose an possibility and comply with the on-screen steps, your PC will routinely be enrolled,” says Yusuf Mehdi, govt vice chairman and shopper chief advertising and marketing officer at Microsoft.
Customers will solely get prolonged safety updates for Home windows 10 till October thirteenth, 2026, however companies have the choice to buy as much as three years of essential safety updates. Microsoft can be making ESU free for Home windows 10 gadgets which are accessing Home windows 11 Cloud PCs via its Home windows 365 and Digital Machines.