Windows 7 gets three more years of support for major customers for a fee

Microsoft will provide security updates to major customers using Windows 7 for a fee through January 2023. The offer is only available to customers who have volume licensing agreements with Microsoft, and the price is increasing year on year.

Mainstream support for Windows 7 already ended in 2015, which means that the OS will no longer receive new functionalities. We are still in the extended support phase for the beloved operating system; security updates will be made until January 14, 2020.

Customers with volume licensing agreements can therefore receive three years of additional support. In addition, customers with subscriptions to Windows Software Assurance or Windows 10 Enterprise or Education receive a discount on these so-called Windows 7 Extended Security Updates. An amount is not mentioned with this offer, but Microsoft expert Mary Jo Foley states that in the past it has been ‘several millions of dollars’.

At the same time, Microsoft is announcing the Desktop App Assure service. This service is offered at no additional cost to Windows 10 Enterprise and Education customers. Microsoft says research has shown that 99 percent of apps that run on Windows 7 will work on Windows 10, even with future W10 updates. The Redmond company is therefore creating this service to ensure that the remaining 1 percent can be reported to Microsoft, after which an engineer will start working with it. MS says they are “committed to completely removing compatibility as a stumbling block in Windows 10.”