Microsoft Will Trade Another Year Of Windows 10 Updates For Points, Or For Testing Windows Backup

You Can Still Pay $30 If You Prefer That To Using Bing

Today Microsoft finally provided a use for those Microsoft points you probably didn’t even know you had!  They seem to have come to the realization that there are still huge swaths of Windows users that are sticking with Windows 10 and no longer offering updates could lead to some serious security troubles.  They’ve extended their offer for another year of updates beyond those who were willing to fork over $30 to keep secure, but the offer comes with some non-financial strings.  If you have a Microsoft Account you can take advantage of these offers, otherwise you will need to create one; not a huge hurdle considering how hard Microsoft has made it to set up a new machine without creating a local Microsoft Account.

You can either test Windows Backup, essentially a fancy way of referring of backing up your files and settings to OneDrive, assuming that doesn’t take you over the 5GB of storage that a free OneDrive account comes with.  The other way you can keep Windows 10 up to date without forking over money is to use your Microsoft Points.  You can see how many of those you have by signing into Bing Rewards, and if you have 1000 in the bank you can also get a year of Windows 10 updates without needing to use Windows Backup.  The points are fairly easy to rack up, just use Bing.

There will be an unwanted side effect to this offer however, Windows 10 users will start seeing messages pushed to their machines sometime in August.  These messages will inform you about the various ways you can sign up for the ESU, and likely also recommend that moving to Windows 11 is a better choice.