Microsoft Relents, Confirms Extended Support Option for Windows 7

Windows 7 could become the new Microsoft Windows XP. While the Redmond company urges consumers and businesses to switch to Windows 10, many customers are happy to stay on Windows 7 despite the end of support. Jared Spataro, Microsoft's vice president of Office and Windows marketing, has offered a helping hand to some Windows 7 customers. He confirms that corporate customers will be able to pay for extended support on Windows 7.

Currently, most Windows 7 users will stop receiving updates until January 14, 2020. The operating system launched in 2009, the operating system will then be more than ten years old. Microsoft is probably anxious to avoid another Windows XP situation where there were so many users of the old operating system that Microsoft had no other choice that to extend the support several times. It was not possible to remove support for XP until April 2014, when the operating system was almost 13 years old.

According to Spataro, Microsoft customers with enough storage space will benefit from Windows 7 support after the shutdown. The Extended Security Updates (ESU) program will allow users of Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Enterprise (volume-licensed) to continue accessing patches. Of course, there will be no new features, but the program's Windows 7 systems will not become prime targets for malware. Although Microsoft has designed it as a way to help companies keep the lights on as they move their systems to Windows 10.

The ESU program will be available until three years after the end of public support. It will be a cost per device, so companies with many Windows 7 machines will have to pay for continued support. This also makes them migrate to Windows 10 over time. In the case of XP, Microsoft also offered customized support contracts to companies and governments that could not abandon their old operating system. It's hard to know if Windows 7 has become so integrated that Microsoft will have to offer a similar service.

To encourage businesses to continue to evolve to Windows 10, the Spataro release also explained how the fast pace of Windows 10 updates could be controlled. Microsoft is committed to ensuring that the current set of feature updates (versions 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803) have 30 months of support from the date of initial release. Future updates for Windows 10 Enterprise will also benefit from 30-month support, but this will increase to 18 months in March. This should allow IT to test and deploy updates on their schedule. The company is still planning two major updates a year.

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