Ramblings of an old Doc
MS's support ends in October 2025
Published on June 28, 2024 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

Some seriously good news for those whose computers won't support upgrade to W11. 0Patch which supports at present Windows7 will support W10 until 2030. That's 200 million W10 devices granted a pardon.

Martin Brinkmann brings us this good news at gHacks:

"Come October 2025, owners of Windows 10 devices will have these five options, if they want to keep on using their devices:

 
  • Upgrade to Windows 11 -- only available if the device is supported officially. Yes, there are workarounds, but Microsoft may introduce changes that are incompatible with older hardware. This happened once already.
  • Join Windows 10 ESU -- Extended Security Updates will be offered to all customers for three years (until 2028). Microsoft has yet to reveal the price for home users. Businesses may pay more than $400 for three years of patching for a single machine.
  • Continue using Windows 10 -- as more vulnerabilities are detected, unpatched Windows 10 systems face more risks.
  • Migrate to Linux -- the best option in many regards, but also the most daunting one, as it means learning a new system and facing the stress of migration. Best, because it is free and not time-limited. Join 0Patch -- the company will create security updates for Windows 10."- gHacks

 

Please read more on the 0Patch blog: https://blog.0patch.com/2024/06/long-live-windows-10-with-0patch.html . Here's how it works:

"Here is how it works:

  • Price: Consumers pay about $25 + tax per year to gain full support for that year. This includes security updates for Windows 10, but also for other Microsoft products, including older Office versions.
  • Patching: A software applies the small patches "to running processes in memory". In other words, no Microsoft binary files are changed.
  • Convenience: Since patches are applied in memory, there is no rebooting involved. gHacks"

I recommend you read the page linked, and the FAQs at the end of the blog post. I recommended 0Patch years ago, and one member here at WC is still using W7 safely thanks, in part to that software.

In short, 0Patch will take over the security patches for W10 in 10/2025, and patch W10 for at least five years...maybe more depending on the demand.

I'm really glad to be bringing this news to you W10 users.

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Links:

0Patch: https://0patch.com/

0Patch registration for free account: https://central.0patch.com/auth/register

gHacks: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/06/28/windows-10-support-until-2030-0patch-makes-it-possible/?_m=3n%2e0038%2e2962%2ehj0ao01hy5%2e33ph

 

 

 

 

 

 


Comments
on Jun 28, 2024

Thanks for the update.

I'm pleased to see that Microsoft is at least intending to make the ESU arrangement to home users.  It did annoy me when they were doing the patches for XP business users (or was it just government and health care? I forget) but not at all making them available for home users.  In other words, they were doing the work anyway but withholding it from the home user.  Honestly I wasn't paying attention for Win7 and Win8.  I'll be curious to see how they price it.

0Patch does of course continue to keep my attention.   

on Jun 28, 2024

DaveRI

Thanks for the update.

I'm pleased to see that Microsoft is at least intending to make the ESU arrangement to home users.  It did annoy me when they were doing the patches for XP business users (or was it just government and health care? I forget) but not at all making them available for home users.  In other words, they were doing the work anyway but withholding it from the home user.  Honestly I wasn't paying attention for Win7 and Win8.  I'll be curious to see how they price it.

0Patch does of course continue to keep my attention.   

MS offered an ESU for W7, W7 SP1, W7Pro, but that ended on 1/14/2020. Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 enabled by Azure arc can purchase ESUs. VMs enabled for Azure get ESUs for free, I believe...it's really complicated. Only just now ESUs were announced as purchasable for W10.

The ESU for XP was only for government, if I remember correctly (the IRS, I think).

0Patch will probably be a lot cheaper, anyway.

on Jun 28, 2024

I've been using 0patch since before MS gave up on Win7 and I cannot recommend it more.

When you already have a system you like, with all the relevant programs all running just as you want the last thing you need is Microsoft "forcing" you to lose it all [not without a struggle] just because there will eventually be security issues.

0patch is an utterly painless way to stay safe and stay with your system as you want it.

The patching protection is done live.  There's not even a need to screw up everything with a reboot thanks to an MS update - MS hasn't even touched my system in years.

Yes, there's an annual subscription but it's worth every penny not to have Microsoft breaking my OS ever again.

 

This is my 0patch 'Dashboard' [a paid one - however there's a limited free version that will whet your appetite]

117 patches applied to 5894 Applications a total of 13,685,496 times.

All of this happens without any user input so is hassle free...

on Jun 29, 2024

Just installed the free version of 0Patch, looks like I will get a subscription soon, it's great!

on Jun 29, 2024

Glad folks are seeing benefit from it. I have a free account, but in the future I'll be converting it to paid for the W10 and patches for other apps, as well. It's a bargain.