Legacy Update Help
Can you add a feature to enable Extended Security Updates for Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 8.1?
Extended Security Updates (ESU) is a service Microsoft provides to paying customers who need to continue running an edition of Windows Embedded, Windows Server, or SQL Server that is no longer receiving standard support. It provides “critical” and “important” security updates to ensure a server or embedded system can continue running until it can be replaced. Microsoft also provides a program named Premium Assurance, further extending support for Windows Server and SQL Server.
Legacy Update is able to extend support for Windows XP from April 2014 to April 2019 by spoofing the computer as being Windows Embedded 2009 (a specialised variant of Windows XP SP3). This is a very simple registry edit that has no effect on the system beyond the list of updates offered by the Windows Update service. With Windows Vista/Server 2008 and later, an installation of Windows becomes enabled to receive ESUs by changing its product key to one indicating that an ESU license has been paid for. To me, bypassing this comes down to being a crack for the Windows licensing system, which is hard to justify the downsides of.
Considering these operating systems are finally reaching their retirement, with the Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Premium Assurance program ending on 13 January 2026, we are considering implementing support for enabling ESUs on Windows Vista and Windows 7 after this date. This allows us to proceed when the monetary value of the updates has diminished, as no new updates will be developed. It also allows us to evaluate whether the “server” updates work correctly on “client” editions of Windows, without it being a moving target. (There have been updates released under ESU/PA that render the system unbootable when installed on a client edition.)
The end of Premium Assurance for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 has not been clearly specified by Microsoft. Based on the timeline of Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, we predict this to be in January 2029.