Microsoft adds three years support for Windows 7

Enterprise customers clinging to their Windows 7 installations will be able to get security updates for three years longer, until January 2023, thanks to Microsoft changing its mind on pulling the plug on support for the heritage operating system.

Windows 7 is otherwise scheduled to exit extended support by January 2020.

However, the Extended Security Updates (ESU) will cost customers and are offered on a per-devices basis. The price for ESUs will increase each year as well.

The ESUs are available to Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise customers in Microsoft's Volume Licensing scheme.

Customers with Windows software assurance and Windows 10 Enterprise and Education subscriptions will get an unspecified discount for the ESUs, Microsoft said. 

Buying the ESUs means Windows 7 means customers will be able to continue to run Office 365 ProPlus, fully supported until 2023.

Microsoft also lengthened the Windows 10 update cycle for enterprises and educational customers, following feedback requesting more time for change management.

The currently supported feature updates for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions versions 1607, 1703, 1709 and 1803 will now be supported for 30 months from their original release date.

Starting with Windows 10 version 1809 that's due out this month, future feature updates will also be supported for two and half years, to give customers with longer deployment cycles more time.

From March next year, Windows 10 Enterprise and Education will move to a semi-annual update cadence, starting with version 1903. The 18-month support cycle will also apply to feature releases of Windows 10 Home, Pro and the Office 365 ProPlus productivity suite.

Microsoft also backtracked on its edict from last year that only customers with mainstream support Office 365 ProPlus or Office 2019 clients could connect to the Office 365 cloud services.

Users on Office 2016 can now continue to connect to Office 365 services until October 2023, Microsoft said.