Unhide the Windows 10 ESU Offer
After downgrading the Surface Go 2 back to Windows 10, I enrolled it in Microsoft’s extended security updates program to keep it current through October 2026. I was surprised to find that I was eligible for the free tier because somewhere along the line I’d synced my settings on this device with my Microsoft account.
Even better: Each Microsoft account can enroll up to 10 devices at no extra charge, so even if I had to pay the $30, it would still be only $30 for the whole household!
Missing
I’d been planning to enroll the gaming PC, but the option never seemed to show up when I went to Windows Update. But it showed up when the teenager looked for it on his login, even though his account isn’t eligible.
Rebooting and messing around with settings didn’t make a difference, so I went looking and found this exchange:
How to get the Windows 10 ESU Enrollment Back
Running the following in the command prompt under my Windows login fixed the problem, and the next time I opened Windows Update, the offer was visible!
cmd /c ClipESUConsumer.exe -evaluateEligibility
The discussion also mentions some registry settings and service config that may be required under some circumstances, or may only have been required back in August, before the ESU was rolled out broadly to consumers. For me, in October, just running the ClipESUConsumer command did the trick.
What’s Going On?
It’s not clear, but this seems likely:
- Windows Update doesn’t check for eligibility in ESU every time you launch it. Or when you log in. Or when you power on the machine. I’m not sure how often it checks, but it’s apparently not often enough.
- It checks for the machine’s eligibility per user. That’s the only explanation for why it made the offer on an account that couldn’t accept it, but didn’t make the offer on an account that could. Well, the only good explanation, anyway.
- It doesn’t check whether the user is eligible, leaving that for when you try to enroll.
In any case, now the gaming PC has another year of security updates for Windows, and we don’t have to upgrade it to Windows 11 yet!