Last fall, Microsoft announced that individuals who wanted to keep using Windows 10 past its official end-of-support date could do so by opting into the company’s Extended Security Update (ESU) program at a cost of $30 per PC. That payment would get users a single year of additional security updates. Today, less than four months before that October 14, 2025, cutoff, Microsoft is announcing additional options for people who can’t or don’t want to pay that fee.

Individuals who want to pay $30 for the additional year of updates will still be able to do so. But Microsoft will also extend a year of additional Windows 10 security updates to any users who opt into Windows Backup, a relatively recent Windows 10 and Windows 11 app that backs up some settings and files using a Microsoft account. Users can also opt into ESU updates by spending 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, which are handed out for everything from making purchases with your Microsoft account to doing Bing searches.

These offers don’t formally extend the end-of-support date for Windows 10. But for users who don’t want to move to Windows 11 or who can’t do so because their PC doesn’t meet the requirements, they do effectively offer an additional year of free updates for the OS that’s still installed on a slim majority of the world’s Windows PCs, according to Statcounter data.

Microsoft’s blog post says that Windows 10 users will be offered access to the ESU program proactively via notifications and the Settings app. Given how aggressively Microsoft has used these and other means to push Windows 11 upgrades and new Copilot+ PCs, it’s at least nice that the company isn’t making Windows 10 users go digging to keep getting updates. Microsoft will test these notifications in the Windows Insider Preview channel for Windows 10 starting today. They’ll begin appearing for regular Windows 10 users in July and should be rolled out to all Windows 10 PCs “by mid-August.”

Once enrolled, the ESU program will support consumer Windows 10 PCs until October 13, 2026. Businesses, schools, and other organizations can still get up to three years of ESU updates, but they’ll have to pay for the privilege; the year of free-ish updates only applies to consumer PCs. Microsoft said recently that it plans to support the Microsoft 365 and standalone versions of the Microsoft Office apps on Windows 10 until 2028.