Windows 10 owners can still buy a year of security updates for $30

Thirty dollars is the price of staying current on security patches for a Windows 10 PC that Microsoft otherwise stopped protecting on October 14, 2025. The one-time purchase buys a year inside the company’s Extended Security Updates program, and Microsoft has quietly pushed the whole program’s expiration date back by a year since it first launched.

Two other paths into the same program cost nothing at all, which makes the $30 option less a bargain and more a fallback for anyone unwilling to hand Microsoft a cloud backup or a stack of loyalty points instead.

The three ways to keep getting patches

Microsoft’s own consumer ESU program page lists the options plainly: enroll at no additional cost by syncing PC settings to a Microsoft account, redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or pay $30 USD plus tax as a one-time purchase. Whichever path a household picks, a single enrollment covers up to ten devices tied to that same Microsoft account, and the protection only extends to machines already running Windows 10 version 22H2 with current updates installed. Eligibility is limited to Home, Professional, Pro Education and Workstation editions of that release, so a PC still running an older build such as 21H2 has to update itself before the enrollment option even appears.

The 1,000-point Rewards option tends to surprise people who have used Windows for years without noticing the program. Microsoft Rewards accumulates points through routine activity such as searching with Bing or completing small quizzes inside the Rewards app, and 1,000 points is a threshold most active accounts already clear, making it the cheapest of the three routes for anyone who already had an account before the ESU deadline arrived.

Getting there is a Settings-menu errand rather than a purchase page. According to Windows Central’s enrollment walkthrough, a PC owner opens Windows Update, clicks “Enroll now” under the end-of-support notice, signs in with a Microsoft account, and picks one of the three options before the wizard confirms the enrollment. The free settings-sync route backs files up to OneDrive but does not require a paid Microsoft 365 subscription, a distinction Microsoft does not advertise as loudly as the $30 price tag.

What still works, and what stops, after October 14, 2025

Microsoft is direct about what the deadline did and did not do. Its own end-of-support page states that “PCs running Windows 10 will continue to function” past the cutoff, so nothing shuts off overnight. What disappears is the safety net: without the monthly patches, the company warns, an unenrolled machine becomes “more vulnerable and susceptible to viruses and malware” every time a new flaw surfaces and never gets fixed on that PC.

Enrollment does not restore everything Windows 10 used to get. A companion Microsoft Learn page on the ESU program’s scope spells out the limit: coverage is restricted to fixes the company classifies as critical or important security updates, and the program “does not provide other types of fixes, feature improvements, or product enhancements,” meaning a paid or free enrollment buys protection, not a newer version of the operating system underneath it.

The year Microsoft quietly added back

The program itself has already outlived its first deadline. Microsoft originally set the consumer ESU window to close on October 13, 2026, then extended it to October 12, 2027, a change reported by Windows Latest after Microsoft confirmed the new date in a statement to the outlet. “This extension provides customers with more time to transition to a new Windows 11 PC while continuing to receive critical security updates,” the company told the publication, framing the extra year as a transition grace period rather than a change of plans.

Windows Latest tied the decision to how slowly Windows 11 has actually spread, noting that adoption has lagged in markets such as Germany and that even Microsoft’s own budget Surface laptops still ship with as little as 8 gigabytes of memory, the kind of hardware Windows 11’s heavier requirements make a harder fit than Windows 10’s.

Businesses and schools running Windows 10 through Microsoft’s volume-licensing programs are on a separate, steeper schedule than the $30 consumer option, with per-device pricing that climbs each additional year an organization stays enrolled. That structure exists to push large fleets toward Windows 11 faster than individual households, which explains why the consumer price has stayed flat at $30 even as the overall program’s calendar moved.

The extension leaves unchanged what a household actually has to decide before the next October rolls around: pay $30, sync settings for free, or spend Rewards points, and do it before a security update that never arrives becomes the reason a PC gets compromised.

Whichever option gets chosen, the enrollment wizard’s final screen is the only confirmation that matters, closing out with a message that the PC is now covered before Windows Update quietly starts delivering the same monthly patches it once sent for free.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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