- Microsoft has changed their minds in extended updates for Windows 10
- The free offer no longer requires that you synchronize the configuration of your PC with OneDrive
- However, this is only the case of those in the European economic zone
Microsoft is eliminating any chain attached to the offer of extended security updates for those who wish to stay with Windows 10 beyond its official deadline for end of life, but only for people in certain countries.
Windows Central reports that Microsoft is changing the rules in the free year of the updates, which extends the Windows 10 support from October 2025 to October 2026, for those in the European Economic Area (USA).
These people may register for extended security updates through the Windows update panel, without captures. In other words, they will not need to have a Microsoft account and use the Windows backup application to synchronize the configuration of your PC with OneDrive, which is the main capture that currently applies to the free year of updates.
However, for the rest of the world outside Europe, this will continue to be the attached condition to the extended support updates program (ESU). (Although there are two other options, none of which is so attractive to most people: pay $ 30 or spend 1,000 Microsoft rewards points).
Microsoft told Windows Central: “In the European economic area, we are updating the registration process to ensure that it meets local expectations and offers a safe and simplified experience. Our goal is to support customers and provide them with options as they pass to Windows 11, with uninterrupted access to critical security updates.”
Analysis: Two levels of Windows users?
I probably know what I’m going to say here, and it is simply that Microsoft should extend this offer to the rest of the world beyond the EEE. No matter the ‘local expectations’, if you are going to do this for a good part of the Windows 10, Microsoft user base, you must do it for everyone.
What really is the driving force behind those Europeans? expectations It is, of course, data regulations in the region, namely the Digital Markets Law. Microsoft has had to walk quite carefully around this legislation, which has meant that Windows users in Europe have access to all types of additional treats that other people in other places do not obtain, such as the ability to eliminate the border browser completely from the operating system (and they are not deactivated to reinstall it).
In my opinion, the Digital Markets Law is effectively creating a type of two levels of Windows users. Some, in Europe, get better benefits on their privacy, and are protected from some of Microsoft’s most annoying arm changes, and others in other places do not get any of those benefits and only have to suffer those various slings and arrows.
Does that seem correct or fair? No. Am I being too dramatic? Well, maybe. But it is beginning to feel something like a two -level system, and if more steps are taken in this direction in the future, and I do not see why they will not be, well, the idea is understood.
Of course, I do not hope that Microsoft changes its position in the edge of The Whole Whelment, or the various compensation for use of its services provided by Windows 11, because all that behavior is too rooted at this time. However, when it comes to this new movement, I think it is a bad way for Microsoft to force some people to synchronize the configuration to obtain extended updates, while letting others slide. Although you are not synchronizing all the data of your PC to OneDrive, I must clarify, only the configuration of your PC.
Even so, what Microsoft In fact You must make here the supply of two years of additional free support in my book: I do not think that one is sufficient, as I have discussed in the past, and more space is justified to breathe due to the requirements of the unusually burning system of Windows 11.
However, perhaps this is an area that Microsoft will visit again next year. It is possible, and I am still hopeful, especially with several consumer rights groups that exert pressure on the software giant.
