As Microsoft prepares to end support for Windows 10, a third-party service is ready to step into the void by offering five years of extra updates for the popular OS.
The offer comes from Slovenia-based 0patch, which has made a business out of patching out-of-date Windows operating systems, including Windows 7. It now plans on supplying critical security patches to Windows 10 once Microsoft officially stops supporting the OS in 2025.
“With 0patch, you will be receiving security ‘micropatches’ for critical, likely-to-be-exploited vulnerabilities that get discovered after October 14, 2025,” the service wrote in a blog post.
(Credit: 0patch)The catch is that you'll have to trust 0patch, an unofficial Microsoft service, to safely maintain your Windows 10 installation. And extended support will cost €24.95 ($27) per year.
Still, the price might be a bargain. Microsoft will also offer extended security updates, but the cost to business customers starts at $61 per device per year and doubles every consecutive year for up to three years. It hasn't announced pricing for consumers yet, but it'll likely be more than $27 per year as Microsoft would prefer you upgrade to Windows 11.
The 0patch service may appeal to those with one of the estimated 240 million PCs that aren't compatible with Windows 11.
“Many of us don't want to, or simply can't, upgrade to Windows 11," 0patch wrote in a blog post that also excoriates Microsoft’s efforts to revamp the OS. “We don't want to because of increasing enshittification including bloatware, Start Menu ads, and serious privacy issues. We don't want to have an automated integrated screenshot- and key-logging feature constantly recording our activity on the computer," it says, a reference to the controversial Recall AI feature.
In contrast, 0patch promises to maintain Windows 10 by serving it critical security fixes. “These patches will be really small, typically just a couple of CPU instructions (hence the name), and will get applied to running processes in memory without modifying a single byte of original Microsoft's binary files,” the service says.
“There will be no rebooting the computer after a patch is downloaded, because applying the patch in memory can be done by briefly stopping the application, patching it, and then letting it continue,” 0patch adds. “Users won't even notice that their computer was patched while they were writing a document, just like servers with 0patch get patched without any downtime at all.”
Still, 0patch won't fix every security vulnerability for Windows 10, only "the important ones, such as those exploited in the wild or those without official vendor patches." If demand for 0patch’s Windows 10 support is high, the service plans on supporting the OS beyond the five-year period.