Windows 7 Leak Reveals Microsoft's Exponential New Support Charges

 Right now Microsoft is flourishing. The rejuvenated giant is in the race to be technology’s most valuable company and (quite rightly) there is widespread praise for Satya Nadella’s leadership. But Windows 7 owners are about to learn this new lean and mean Microsoft still knows how to make unpopular decisions…  

Despite its massive popularity, Microsoft has no plans to extend support of Windows 7 past January 2020. That is unless you pay a new annual fee which will double in price every year.

Citing partners and having obtained screen grabs of pricing, reveals Microsoft will charge Windows 7 Pro users $50 for the first year of additional support, $100 for the second year and $200 for the third year. Windows Enterprise volume licensing customers will pay half these rates, but the cost of maintaining a lot of PCs will get very expensive very quickly.

Furthermore, there’s no point opting in late. If you only join in the second year, you still have to pay for the first year as well. Ouch.

There’s some further pain here too as regular consumers have no option to join, their computers will simply be cut off from updates in January 2020. So while one extra year for $50 may have seemed tempting, it won’t be available to you. And Microsoft recently increased the price of Windows 10 Home from $119 to $139 as well. 

In defence of Microsoft, Windows 7 will be 10 years old this year and the company has to draw a line somewhere.

That said if Microsoft wants customers to upgrade willingly to Windows 10 without the threat of expensive penalties, then the company first needs to cut-out the numerous serious problems that can make this move so unappealing to Windows 7 users in the first place…