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Microsoft To Start Selling Windows 7 Add-On Support April 1st (computerworld.com)
AmiMoJo quotes Computerworld: Microsoft plans to start selling its Windows 7 add-on support beginning April 1. Labeled "Extended Security Updates" (ESU), the post-retirement support will give enterprise customers more time to purge their environments of Windows 7. From Windows 7's Jan. 14, 2020 end of support, ESU will provide security fixes for uncovered or reported vulnerabilities in the OS.
Patches will be issued only for bugs rated "Critical" or "Important" by Microsoft, the top two rankings in a four-step scoring system. ESU will be dealt out in one-year increments for up to three years and support will be sold on a per-device basis, rather than the per-user approach Microsoft has pushed for Windows 10 licensing. Costs for ESU will start out low — $25 or $50 per year per device — but will double each year, ending at $100 or $200 per device for the third and final year
Patches will be issued only for bugs rated "Critical" or "Important" by Microsoft, the top two rankings in a four-step scoring system. ESU will be dealt out in one-year increments for up to three years and support will be sold on a per-device basis, rather than the per-user approach Microsoft has pushed for Windows 10 licensing. Costs for ESU will start out low — $25 or $50 per year per device — but will double each year, ending at $100 or $200 per device for the third and final year
Come on, we just had an article about how bad customer service is profitable, we don't need another one: https://slashdot.org/story/19/...
That's a fucking deal. Our company will definitely do it.
I don't respond to AC's.
This is a joke right? Right?
because it will be only 85 more upgrades and you will be back to using windows 95
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Well that is one way to get people use to paying subscriptions, start charging for upgrades on a yearly basis for an OS people seems to love and throw in a subscription to Office cloud
Glad I left the M/S train a long time ago :)
Is someone planning on creating an unofficial Windows 7 service pack like they did for Windows XP?
This was supposed to be a good thing. Like RedHat, right?
It's actually not a bad idea. Microsoft has been trying to transition for Software as a Service for years. They want to drag everyone kicking and screaming into paying them monthly for the privilege of using Windows. So, how to transition people who would rather go back to DOS than pay Microsoft to use their OS? You bring out back-to-back versions of Windows that are so hated and draconian that people will pay to keep security updates going on Windows 7.
People won't pay to use their OS, but they may pay to keep security updates going on the last version to be usable. Way to sneak Software as a Service into the back door, Microsoft.
They know people don't want to upgrade their "just works" Windows 7 environment, especially after the pain of having to upgrade from Windows XP just a few years ago, so they will use support extortion and will probably "leak" security holes out to Wannacry's programmers. Their end game is to get everyone on the upcoming "Windows 365" subscription treadmill so they will use the "support protection racket" for Windows 7. They knew exactly what they are doing by releasing it on that date (April 1). Unfortunately promises of the penguins saving us has failed to come every year for nearly two decades now.
Having poor quality software makes more money for Microsoft!
Lately, Windows users are not allowed to know what Windows updates actually do. In the past, for example, users were pushed to Windows 10, without giving their permission. So, now Windows 7 customers will be paying for updates that may be abusive.
Some of the many stories about Windows 10 indicate deliberate abuse of customers:
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)
Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)
Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)
Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)
I know some companies still using XP.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Why don't we do this for copyright? Instead of letting companies keep a copyright for 120 years or whatever it is by now, charge a registration fee that escalates geometrically. Choose the constant and ratio so that it's cheap for the first couple of decades, or maybe even waive the fee for the first decade, so that small authors don't get pinched out, and then by the time you get to fifty years or so, the fees are in the millions of dollars per work per year, so that only the biggest ongoing blockbusters are kept out of the public domain for that long (which seems reasonable -- if a company is willing to spend millions of dollars to retain a copyright, presumably they are being good stewards and getting a return on that investment). We should also tie software copyright to liability -- if Microsoft is charging people to get support for their software, then they should be on the hook when things break, EULAs be damned, and if they don't want to deal with that, well, all they have to do is release the software and its source code into the public domain.
Uhhh...show me a version of Linux you don't have to pay support for that gets 10 years of patches WITHOUT upgrading, because if that is what qualifies for "bad service" I just wish I could get even half that for most of my devices.
Say what you will about their releases (Good Lord you couldn't pay me to run Windows 10, 8.1 with classic shell is a million times more stable) but I can't think of a single other company that gives 10 years (and in some cases more, geez they supported XP for what felt like an eternity) of security patches even on the lowest end consumer devices. Hell these days you can't even get 3 years of patches on a $1000+ Google phone when Google made the bloody thing, for a company like MSFT to support patches for 10 years on an OS that is 3 versions behind? Quite impressive IMHO.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So, how to transition people who would rather go back to DOS than pay Microsoft to use their OS? You bring out back-to-back versions of Windows that are so hated and draconian that people will pay to keep security updates going on Windows 7.
It's going to transition people straight to Apple, probably, although they abandon operating system versions too. It will also transition many people straight to TPB to download the updates. And it will transition a few people to Linux.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's a Win-win for Microsoft since, on one side, they make money and also give support to people that want to keep using Windows 7. On the other hand the escalating costs are an obvious mechanism to nudge people to Windows 10.
Windows 10 is really an ad for Linux. When Win7 dies, so does Microsoft. It's not like they provide anything unique or useful anymore. RIP Microsoft, you remind me of Blackberry. Good riddance.
And then you suddenly find yourself on a Windows 10 system.
Your argument seems to be broken given that Windows is paid for up-front and we're talking about security fixes that are fundamental defects in the original product here.
Also, probably the most popular desktop Linux distro now does offer 10-year support on its LTS releases.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Three versions behind? Ha! After accounting for all the things they broke and the spyware/telemetry they added I would say Windows 7 is at least a version superior to 10.
I don't think they have to support stuff forever, that would not be reasonable.
What I think is that if they have security fixes, they must make them generally available. I really making security-fixes that _are_ available pay-only, enterprise-only is not acceptable.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I've already fucked with Windows 7 thanks to NSA releasing Ghidra. I've fixed most of the security issues, and fixed the INTENTIONAL degrading of GPU performance, and re-acquired my rightful framerate in basic fucking games like Windows ports of REGULAR DOOM (Before the update that halved the RemoteFX performance in Wndows Server 2008R2, I was getting 60+FPS in the Windows Doom port using Zandronum. After that update hit my system, I got roughly 25 FPS. This is repeatable across games like TABG, PUBG, Dead by Daylight, and more.)
Also of note, Windows 7 has a neat little backdoor. I won't say anything more than look at your Explorer process if you accepted the telemetry-enabling Win7 updates. Even if you disable Windows Update across the board with shit like group policy restrictions (on those versions which support it,) they will still infect you with updates, it's literally built-into the Explorer process itself. And without Explorer running, you can't run Windows.
Game fucking over. Microsoft has literally violated the shit oiut of the CFAA, and nobody will do a thing about it.
You fucking cowards. I stand here, about to win my 4th settlement against massive companies for violating our laws, and you hetero faggots just mill around thinking you can't risk your job because of court shit - GUESS WHAT, BY LAW THEY CAN'T FUCK YOU OVER FOR HAVING TO GO TO COURT.
Second Protip: If you can't AFFORD to file suit, the courts have you covered there, with a goddamned FEE WAIVER upon proving you don't have the income to pay for this. GET OFF YOUR FUCKING ASS AND SUE, YOU COWARDLY FUCKS.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Those were the days. Back when late night comedy had jokes
I paid for my Android phones up front, didn't get me more than a couple months worth of security patches.
And does modern software actually work on this LTS you speak of? Because I've found the big gotcha in Linux is a lack of a stable ABI (which is quite sad as MSFT has had one for what 2 decades now?) so that software requires kernel version x, GCC y which means you can't actually run up to date software that isn't backported by the distro. Again say what you will or make any excuses about how Linux doesn't need an ABI but I can install Win 7 right now and run the latest versions of pretty much all popular software out there OOTB.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I suspect this will be super low volume, but may allow some companies that didn't plan to more easily transition.
My problem is that I have an app that only works on Windows 7 32bit. We're trying to re-develop it for Windows 10 64bit, but it is being a real PITA. At one point I briefly consider the above, extended security update purchase. However it is moot, as a large organization it was decided long ago to transition to Windows 10, and there is no way in hell IT is going to allow Windows 7 to persist on the network. So it's likely not really even an option for me unfortunately. Then again we'd just be delaying the inevitable anyway.
That said, for say smaller orgs that are all Windows 7, that gives them options to properly move over in a more managed way.