Microsoft announces yet another Windows 7 support extension (for SMBs)

[harlan4096]

Microsoft announced yesterday that the option to get extended support for the company's Windows 7 operating system will be available to businesses of all sizes.

Support for the Windows 7 operating system ends in January 2020. Microsoft will deliver security updates for the operating system until that month but won't produce security updates or any other update anymore afterward for free.

The company announced previously that Enterprise customers may extend support by up to three years. The price of support starts at $50 per user and year and double each year so that $100 and $200 need to be paid per user in the following years.

Up until yesterday, that was the only way to extend support for Windows 7 (except for the exception of voting machines in the US 2020 election which would also be supplied with security updates).

Yesterday's announcement allows businesses of any size to extend support for up to three years.

With that in mind, today we are announcing that, through January 2023, we will extend the availability of paid Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) to businesses of all sizes. (Previously, Windows 7 ESU was only available to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise customers in Volume Licensing.) The Windows 7 ESU will be sold on a per-device basis with the price increasing each year.

The extended security updates for Windows 7 will be sold on a per-device base and not on a per-user base like they are for Enterprise customers. The price per device depends on the year and edition of Windows 7.

Basically, the costs per year are identical for Windows 7 Professional and only half for Windows 7 Enterprise. It needs to be noted that the SMB extensions apply to the entire device while the Enterprise extensions to individual users.
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