More than 800 million Microsoft users are buckling up for a rollercoaster ride, as they get ever nearer the Windows-maker ending their critical security updates in October. We’re talking Windows 11 and the painful process of pushing Windows 10 users to switch. Despite years of trying, Microsoft has yet to convince most of them to move.
What’s now clear is that this huge group splits broadly in half — those that won’t update and those that can’t. For the first half, the enticement is a free upgrade to a more secure and feature-rich OS. Albeit that has not yet done the trick. For the other half, those without PCs recent enough to meet the Windows 11 security hurdle,
All 800 million can kick the can down the road another year with extended support — longer if they’re doing so as part of an enterprise or school account. And on this, the company has started to publish more formal pricing and buying guidance. And while we can assume most users with PCs capable of a jump to Windows 11 will do so rather than pay a fee, the other 400 million users have a harder choice. And chances are this is the group least likely to pay extra and therefore most likely to fall off support.