Microsoft offers some business customers free Windows 7 extended security updates for one year

The company wants to give businesses a bit more time to finalise their plans for migration from Windows 7 to Windows 10

Microsoft is offering some business customers still running Windows 7 on their PCs free security updates for one more year.

As per a recent document published by Microsoft, Enterprise Agreement (EA) and Enterprise Subscription Agreement (EAS) customers using Windows 10 Enterprise E5, Government E5, Microsoft 365 E5, and Microsoft 365 E5 Security subscriptions will be able to receive extended security updates for Windows 7 for one more year at no additional cost.

"Starting June 1st, EA and EAS customers with active subscription licenses to Windows 10 Enterprise E5, Microsoft 365 E5, or Microsoft 365 E5 Security (as of December 31, 2019) will get Windows 7 Extended Security Updates for Year 1 as a benefit," Microsoft explains in its document.

After one year, businesses will be charged $50 per device to receive updates for the second year and $100 per device for a third year.

The subscriptions that qualify for the plan must remain active throughout the extended security update period in order to regularly receive security updates.

For other Windows subscription plans, Microsoft said it will start charging customers ($200 per year) from January 2020, when the support for 7 ends.

The EA and EAS plans have been specially created for medium and large enterprises with 500 or more licenses to manage.

According to Microsoft, the idea behind offering business receive security updates is to provide them with more time to finalise their plans for migration from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Security firm Kaspersky claims that there is still a large number of organisations running Windows 7 despite its imminent retirement.

On Monday, the firm released findings of a customer survey, revealing that 47 per cent of small and medium businesses and enterprise customers are still using Windows 7.

Of the smallest businesses and desktop consumers, 38 per cent are running Windows 7 on their machines. And there ia still a stubborn one per cent of small business and two per cent of consumers using the ancient and insecure Windows XP operating system.

Last September, Microsoft announced that it would offer continuing security updates for Windows 7 to businesses through to January 2023 (for a fee on a per-machine basis).

In January, Microsoft warned that extended support for Windows 7 will stop on 14 January. The next month, the company announced pricing for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates. That pricing will come into effect in January 2020 when the company discontinues extended support for Windows 7.

In March, Microsoft also announced that it was planning to start pushing notifications on Windows 7 users to warn them about the upcoming end of security updates for the popular operating system.