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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
That's a fucking deal. Our company will definitely do it.
I don't respond to AC's.
Is someone planning on creating an unofficial Windows 7 service pack like they did for Windows XP?
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)
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.
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.