The community of the My Digital Life online forum has found an illegal way to extend support for Windows 7: bypass Microsoft’s restrictions and allow the installation of Windows 7 Extended Security Updates on all systems, not just on those that paid for it.
Very soon, on January 14, 2020, support for Windows 7 will be discontinued. Although the OS lost last year the lead to Windows 10 and continues gradually losing popularity, Windows 7 still accounts for about 30% of the market.
Since there are still a lot of users with Windows 7 and the prospect of switching to another OS does not appeal to everyone, they are already thinking about how to use extended support (Extended Security Updates, ESU) for free.
Recall that extended support is a paid service of Microsoft, with the help of which the corporation will continue to deliver security updates to companies and enterprises using Windows 7, until 2023.
The cost of such support is from 25 to 200 dollars per workstation, depending on the version of the OS (Enterprise or Pro), as well as the time during which the company needs updates. And not everyone can use ESU.
“But not everybody is eligible for ESU. Only companies with volume-licensing agreements and small-and-midsize businesses (SMBs) can sign up for an ESU license.”, — said in the ZDNet edition.
Last month, Microsoft released a test update KB4528069, which allows administrators to check whether their systems are ready to work with advanced support.
So, as users have already found out, after installing the update, it is necessary to provide the system with an ESU license key, which allows the use of advanced support.
As a result, the My Digital Life community has already found a way to bypass Microsoft restrictions, which allows installation of advanced updates on all systems. The tool successfully copes with installing a test ESU.
“Similar to how modders have bypassed Windows OS installation key checks for the past decades, the community at My Digital Life created a tool that circumvents the ESU key check operation and enables the installation of the test ESU”, — reports ZDNet.
Although Microsoft is most likely to change the mechanism of check, users have been hacking and pirating Windows for decades, so can assumed that the restriction on installing ESUs will not be an obstacle for them.
Let me remind you that Windows 7 is all very weakly protected. Using this system you expose yourself to the risk of hacker attacks and malware infection. You can even see the most common malware of 2019.
