Windows 10: if you want to continue receiving updates after 2025, you will have to pay!

Windows 10 will receive security updates until 2028… if you agree to checkout!

While October 14, 2025 was to mark the end of support for Windows 10, Microsoft is announcing an Extension Security Updates (ESU) program. This allows you to benefit from monthly security patches beyond this date, but this service will not be free.

3 years of security patches after official end of support

With the ESU program, Microsoft will extend the lifespan of Windows 10 by three additional years, as the publisher had already proposed with Windows 7. But this time, for the first time, all users will be able to join the ESU program, which was formerly reserved for businesses and professionals.

Microsoft has not yet communicated what the cost of this support extension will be. We only know that invoicing will take place on an annual basis. What is certain is that the program will not provide the right to feature updates, but only to patches filling critical and important security flaws.

This initiative mainly concerns companies which would have difficulty upgrading their entire IT equipment and for which security is a primary issue. Of course, Windows 10 will continue to work as usual after October 14, 2025.

The cloud option for businesses

As an alternative to the ESU program, Microsoft is offering (exclusively to businesses, this time) to upgrade computers running Windows 10, ineligible for an upgrade to Windows 11, to a virtual machine via Microsoft 365.

This way, Windows 10 PCs that are no longer supported will be able to stream Windows 11 through the cloud. The main system used for the company’s activities would thus be deported and based on Windows 11, which still benefits from security updates without having to pay.

Source : Windows Central