Windows 10 users will now get a year’s reprieve, according to a recent announcement from Microsoft. However, in order to receive security updates up to October 2026, you will need to sign up with the ESU (Extended Security Updates) program for free instead of paying $30 and/or sync your PC settings and data to the cloud through a Microsoft account. This extension does not include support, bug fixes, or feature updates. The company has also revealed that users can enroll in ESU by submitting 1000 points from the Microsoft Rewards Program (MRP). Frankly, this is the first I’ve heard of MRP, and I had a grand total of 122 points until I began clicking on Bing links in the above link, which gives me 10 points per link. If I have only just heard about this rewards program, and let’s face it, techies like me live with Windows every day of the year, how many will never have heard of it?
Clearly, Microsoft is aware that Windows 10 has a much larger market share/user base than Windows 11 and is offering a kind of olive branch to Windows 10 users. However, in my experience, most of my customers who use Windows are either not aware of the October 2025 deadline, don’t care, run incompatible hardware for Windows 11, or simply have no idea about security threats. On the other hand, I do help them to understand and, whenever possible, using known workarounds, upgrade their PCs to Windows 11, even if they are incompatible. Do they care? Not much.
Furthermore, there is a known pushback to using Microsoft’s backup services, such as OneDrive. One only has to read the comments in the hundreds of articles published online since this announcement was made. I know from experience that syncing every PC in my Microsoft account can cause problems, not to mention the number of people who would rather not have all their data in the cloud. An inherent mistrust of cloud syncing still pervades the general public.
Again, from my experience, most of my customers will simply bumble along with Windows 10 well beyond any end-of-life (EOL) date because they are more focused on much more important things in life, like getting to the end of the month. Heck, some are still using Windows 8!
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