German government will pay €800,000 for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates this year

What you need to know

• The German government will pay €800,000 for Extended Security Updates for PCs running Windows 7.
• The German government has more than 33,000 workstations running Windows 7.
• Extended Security Updates range between $25 and $200 per workstation depending mainly on the version of Windows 7 a device runs.

The German government will pay €800,000 (roughly $886,000) for Extended Security Updates for Windows 7 PCs via ZDNet. The German government has more than 33,000 workstations that still run Windows 7, and Extended Security Updates come at a high cost. Windows 7 fell out of support earlier this month, and Extended Security Updates range between $25 and $200 per device depending on what version of Windows 7 a device runs and what year the security updates cover.

While Windows 7 is out of support, larger enterprises can pay Microsoft for Extended Security Updates. These updates start at $25 per device as a Windows Enterprise add-on but cost $50 per Windows 7 Pro device. These prices go up each year, with the price of a Windows 7 Pro device reaching $200 per device by January 2022.

Local German newspaper Handelsblatt initially broke the story. According to Handelsblatt, the German government began migrating its PCs to Windows 10 in 2018 but has not finished the migration.

This likely won't be the last enterprise client of Microsoft that we hear about paying high security fees. A recent study states that Windows 7 is "nearly ubiquitous" at large companies.

Since Windows 7 is out of support, enterprise customers have to choose between a mass migration to Windows 10, paying for Extended Security Updates, or using an unsecured operating system, though that last choice isn't a viable option.