Finishing | Zheng Liyuan
Produced by | Program Life (ID: coder_life)
For many Windows users, October 14, 2025 is a special day: Windows 10 will be officially retired and Microsoft will no longer provide official support.
In other words, with less than 500 days left, Windows 10 will be a "wild child".
However, 0patch has recently announced that they will seamlessly take over from Microsoft: after Microsoft ends support for Windows 10, 0patch will provide an additional 5 years of security patches!
0patch is still providing support for Windows 7
Before we get into the main topic, let's take a general look at 0patch.
According to the official website, 0patch claims to be a "micro solution to a huge security problem", mainly sending microcode patches ("micropatches") to computers and other devices around the world to fix software vulnerabilities in various and even closed-source products: "With 0patch, there is no need to reboot or downtime when patching, and there is no need to worry about large-scale official updates disrupting production. ”
It is reported that the micro-code patches provided by 0patch are very light and simple, making software patching almost "imperceptible": it can reduce patch deployment time from months to hours, the cost of reviewing micro-patches is low, and the ability to apply and remove patches locally or remotely on the fly also greatly simplifies production testing.
In addition to this, 0patch is also a company dedicated to providing security updates for expired products.
Recall that in January 2023, when Microsoft provided the last batch of security updates for Windows 7 through the ESU program, 0patch immediately announced that it would provide micropatching services for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 devices until January 2025: "We have decided to continue to provide security patches for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to patch critical vulnerabilities that may be exploited. ”
With the above in mind, it seems to be expected that 0patch announced the decision to continue providing security patches for Windows 10 for 5 years.
If you don't want to/can't upgrade Windows 11, there are two scenarios
In fact, despite Microsoft's insistence that Windows 10 is being retired and that it needs to be upgraded to Windows 11 as soon as possible for security reasons, for many users, there is not much real feeling.
If there is no other support, what exactly will happen by waiting until October 14, 2025?
Perhaps consider Windows 7, which ended support back in January 2020: a Windows 7 PC that was last updated in 2020 could easily be compromised without additional security patches, with more than 70 critical vulnerabilities publicly known to affect Windows 7 alone.
By analogy, if Windows 10 PCs are not patched after October 2025, it's likely that the first critical vulnerability will appear within a month, and then more and more vulnerabilities will appear in the following months and remain in the PC indefinitely. Eventually, the risk of your computer being compromised will increase over time, unless you're not connected to the Internet.
That's why Microsoft suggests that the only "free" way to keep Windows safe is to upgrade to Windows 11 — but 0patch speaks for many: "Many of us don't want or can't upgrade to Windows 11." ”
- We didn't want to upgrade because we were used to the Windows 10 user interface. Don't want to search for where a button has been moved, or why the apps we use every day aren't there. The existing Windows 10 already had everything we needed.
- We didn't want to upgrade because of the growing number of bloatware, Start menu ads, and serious privacy issues in Windows 11, and we didn't want features like Recall to keep recording our activity on our computers.
- I don't want to upgrade because some apps may not work on Windows 11, such as medical devices, manufacturing equipment, POS terminals, special purpose devices, and ATMs, which run on Windows 10 and can't be easily upgraded.
- We can't upgrade because our hardware may not be eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 at all. Canalys estimates that 240 million computers worldwide do not meet Windows 11 hardware requirements, lacking a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, a supported CPU, 4GB of RAM, UEFI firmware with Secure Boot, or a supported GPU.
In this case, most users have two ways to ensure that Windows 10 continues to run securely: Extended Security Updates (ESU) or 0patch.
0patch is cheaper and promises longer support
Among them, the Extended Security Updates (ESU) are a temporary solution officially given by Microsoft, mainly for organizations and enterprises as they transition from Windows 10 to the new operating system: if you want to continue to use Windows 10 safely, you will have to pay for it.
Currently, ESU's pricing is only for businesses and educational organizations, and pricing for individual consumers has not been disclosed. Educational organizations charge a very cheap fee of $7 for three years, while enterprises are much more expensive: $61 (about 443 yuan) per PC in the first year, $122 (about 886 yuan) in the second year, and $244 (about 1,772 yuan) per Windows 10 device in the third year to get security updates.
0patch notes that if you have 10,000 Windows 10 PCs in your enterprise, it will cost you $4 million at the Extended Security Updates (ESU) billing schedule.
"It would be nice if there was a way to get more for less......"
With this in mind, 0patch announced that from October 2025, they will be providing critical security patches for Windows 10 for at least 5 years – and even longer if the market needs it.
In the official blog, 0patch describes itself as the only unofficial security patch provider for Windows and specifically describes the characteristics of its patches: 0patch will provide "micropatches" for important vulnerabilities that may be exploited in Windows 10 after October 14, 2025.
- These patches are very small, usually only a few CPU instructions, and can be applied to a running process in memory without modifying any bytes of the binary.
- There's no need to restart the computer after downloading the patch, because applying the patch in memory only requires a brief pause, patching, and then letting it continue running, without the user even noticing that they were patched while writing the document.
Like Microsoft's ESU though, 0patch isn't a free service, except that it promises longer support and more benefits, such as faster, less intrusive patches, fixing vulnerabilities that manufacturers don't touch, and patching for non-Microsoft products, among other things.
It is reported that 0patch is an annual subscription, and the 0patch PRO for individuals and small businesses costs 24.95 euros (about 192 yuan) + tax per computer, while the 0patch Enterprise for large and medium-sized enterprises costs 34.95 euros (about 271 yuan) + tax per computer. 0patch also added that this price may be adjusted in the future, but anyone who subscribes at the current price can continue to subscribe at this price for two years.
Reference Links:
https://blog.0patch.com/
https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-will-get-five-years-of-additional-support-thanks-to-0patch/
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