Microsoft has found a new use for Reward Points – and another incentive to upload everything you hold dear to someone else’s servers.
You know the drill by now. Windows 10 is approaching its end of life (although the special LTSC edition has years to go, and we told you how to get it a couple of months ago). In April last year, The Register described the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, and then in October when the scheme was extended to individual consumers for a bargain-tastic $30 for one year.
Now the company is widening the ESU entry criteria. A new blog post by consumer marketing veep Yusuf Mehdi lays out three ways for consumers to get with the program:
The rewards scheme piqued our curiosity, as The Reg FOSS desk does in fact have a Microsoft Hotmail account, and has since 1996 or so. We signed into the Bing Rewards page excitedly to see how many points we had accrued in nearly three decades. The answer is… 341. At this rate, in just 79 years, we will have enough for a free year of Windows updates! This vulture will also be 14 years older than the late Jeanne Calment by then, and sincerely hopes not to be using any version of Windows in 2104.
Slightly more seriously, the Windows Backup option is a good one. Backups are a good thing and you can’t have too many of them. The Windows Backup app is free and you can use it alongside other backup tools. There is, of course, a slight snag – it backs up to Microsoft OneDrive (the service formerly known as SkyDrive). The basic free level of OneDrive storage gives you 5 GB of cloud storage and 15 GB in your inbox. If your files fit into that, good for you. Ours have not for a long time – possibly not long after we opened our Hotmail account.
So what this really means is that if you’re paying for extra OneDrive storage, you (yes, you, $CUSTOMER_6845734542!) qualify for ESU. In many cases, paying for extra OneDrive storage means you’re also paying for Microsoft 365, and that means extra updates. The $19.99-a-year plan gets you 100 GB of OneDrive space, and the $99.99-a-year, or $9.99 per month) gets you 1,000 GB.
(What’s more, it says here, Copilot now included. Don’t you try to threaten me, Nadella.)
In summary, if you’re paying for Microsoft 365 – likely to get Office 365 – then you get a year more of updates. Joking aside, that’s good. The barrel of the gun has lowered slightly, at least for those obedient customers who are paying for extra services over and on top of their OS. Good for them.
If you’re not – for example, if you are happy with a much older version of MS Office – then you still might want to investigate the LTSC branch, or just bite the bullet and switch to Linux. You can always dual boot the thing.
As for commercial users? Life is going to get more expensive for most. Mehdi says they can “subscribe to ESU for $61 USD per device to receive monthly critical and important security updates for one year.” This subscription can be renewed annually for a maximum of three years and the cost rises each year.
In terms of cloud and virtual environments? “Windows 10 devices accessing Windows 11 Cloud PCs through Windows 365 or Virtual Machines are entitled to ESU at no additional cost and will automatically receive security updates with no extra steps required.” ®
Bootnote
It looks like Mr Mehdi is a true Microsoftie for life. He was blogging about Windows 10 – The First 24 Hours a full decade ago, but the first mention we can find of him on The Reg is from way back in 1999. That’s good going.
