Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 last week. And although it’s been years since the release of Windows 10, a large number of computers around the world still run Windows 7.

With Windows 7 support ending last week, companies are now scrambling to either upgrade to Windows 10 if they haven’t already, or getting extended support for Windows 7. And the German Federal Ministry is one of those.

According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, the German Federal Ministry is paying Microsoft 800,00 euros, or around $887,000 for extended support on its Windows 7 machines. The German Federal Ministry is paying Microsoft for the Extended Security Updates (ESU) service, with the ministry getting extended support for at least 33,000 computers running Windows 7.

Handelsblatt notes that the German government is actually in the middle of migrating to Windows 10, though 23.5% of its 85,000 machines are still running Windows 7.

If organisations keep sticking to Windows 7 instead of upgrading to Windows 10, the price of extended support is only going to increase. As The Verge notes, Microsoft is going to double the price for extended support per device from $25 to $50 in 2021, and to $100 in 2022 for Windows 7 Enterprise users. Windows 7 Pro users already have to pay $50 per machine for extended support, but that’s going to double to $100 in 2021 and $200 in 2022.

Tagged with Extended Support, Windows 10, Windows 7