Officially, Microsoft will stop providing new security updates for Windows 10 PCs after October 14, 2025, a little over a decade after its initial release. It's a stick that Microsoft is using to push upgrades to the newer Windows 11, whether you install it on a PC you already have or buy a brand-new PC to meet Windows 11's system requirements.
But if you can't or don't want to upgrade to Windows 11, Microsoft has made it reasonably simple to get an extra year of Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for Windows 10, extending its official support window to October of 2026. But this won't happen automatically; users will need to enroll their PCs in the ESU program to get the updates, using an enrollment feature that Microsoft just released to Windows 10 PCs recently.
For anyone looking to get that extra year of updates, here's how to enroll your PC, how to make sure your PC is enrolled, and how to avoid paying the $30 fee that Microsoft is nominally charging for these updates.
Enrolling Your Windows 10 PC in the Esu Program
To enroll your PC in the ESU program, you'll need to meet Microsoft's list of requirements and anti-requirements, which we'll summarize here for convenience:
A PC running Windows 10 Home, Pro, Pro Education, or Workstation with all available update installed.
An administrator account.
A Microsoft account. Even if you usually sign in with a local account, you need a Microsoft account to acquire the ESU license.
The PC can't be in kiosk mode, joined to an Active Directory domain, joined to Microsoft Entra, or enrolled in any kind of mobile device management (MDM), which will cover a lot of workplace PCs. Microsoft has separate ESU programs for businesses, schools, and other large organizations.
If your PC meets those conditions, you'll enroll in the ESU program by opening the Settings app and clicking Windows Update. You should see a status message telling you that Windows 10 updates end in October of 2025, with an "enroll now" link you can click to enroll in the Extended Security Updates program.
If you're not already signing in with a Microsoft account, you'll be asked to use one here. This can be temporary, if you want it to be—once you've enrolled a given PC, you can sign back out of the Microsoft account and still get the ESUs. But you'll need an account every time you enroll a new PC, or if you do a fresh install of Windows 10 on your PC and need to re-enroll.
There are three ways to get an ESU license: You can pay a $30 one-time purchase, you can redeem 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, or you can back up settings with the Windows Backup app.