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Home users who sign in to Windows 10 with a Microsoft account can register for Extended Security Updates (ESU) at no cost and continue receiving free updates until October 14th, 2026. The first updates have been available since November 11th, 2025 (i.e. one month after the official end of support). That all sounds promising, but in practice things don’t always work as expected. For many users, the option to register with Windows 10 ESU doesn’t appear in the system. If the option does appear, users receive cryptic error messages. We’ll walk you through how to fix these issues. Prerequisite: All available updates must be installed Before activating the ESU, make sure all updates are installed on the PC and that the message “Your version of Windows is no longer supported” appears in the Windows Update settings. Foundry / Ashley Biancuzzo The option to register for Windows 10 ESU doesn’t appear To register for ESU in Windows 10, you must first ensure that Windows 10 is activated. You can check this in Settings under Update & Security -> Activation. Another requirement is that you’re signed in with a Microsoft account, which you can do under Accounts. If everything is set up correctly, you should not only see the message “Your version of Windows is no longer supported” under Update & Security -> Windows Update, but also a link at the bottom of the window to register for ESU. If the link doesn’t appear, open Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 and enter the following command in the address field: ms-settings:windowsupdate-esu?OCID=WEB_EOS_CY25_ESU&source=WEB Confirm the prompt to open it. The ESU registration wizard should then appear. Foundry / Ashley Biancuzzo The next page of the wizard checks whether your PC meets the requirements. If it does, you can complete the ESU setup. If it fails, additional steps are required. ESU connection: Something did not work Unfortunately, the connection doesn’t always succeed, and the message “Something did not work” may show up. This message isn’t very helpful on its own, so you’ll need to try a few different approaches to resolve the issue. The first thing you should do is restart the PC and run the command in Edge again. If that doesn’t work, sign in to account.microsoft.com with your Microsoft account and go to Devices. It’s possible that too many devices are associated with your account, including ones you no longer use. In some cases, you may also see a message during the ESU registration stating that you’ve reached your device limit. Remove all devices that you don’t recognize or need. If you accidentally remove a device that you’re still using, simply log back in to this device with your account. Ashampoo Windows 10 ESU Login helps with these issues The small Windows 10 ESU Login program from Ashampoo can also help with these issues. You can use the tool free of charge to connect to Windows 10 ESU. Foundry / Ashley Biancuzzo However, the tool doesn’t work reliably in our tests. Still, it’s worth a try. Clean up incorrect region settings If the free ESU registration option is still missing, or only paid options appear, Windows may have assigned your device to the wrong region. Microsoft only offers the free ESU program in the European Economic Area (EEA). Under Time & Language -> Region, make sure that your system is set to an EEA country (such as Germany). Then delete the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel\DeviceRegion (if present) in the registry. This will be recreated with the correct region code after the next restart. Windows 10 Enterprise and Education do not receive a free ESU If the error message “Something didn’t work” continues to appear in the ESU wizard, there may be a mix-up with a company device. Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions are excluded from the free ESU program. Windows 10 is incorrectly recognized as a company device However, even a Windows 10 Home or Pro system can be blocked if it was linked to a work or school account. In this situation, Windows incorrectly categorizes the device as a company PC and denies private ESU login. Open Accounts -> Access to work or school area in the settings and disconnect any work or school accounts you see there. Also note that private ESUs are only available for domain-independent computers. Domain- or MDM-managed devices only receive ESUs via company accounts. After removing any corporate account links, restart the PC and try the enrollment again. Last resort: Inplace upgrade If none of the previous steps work, you can try a repair in-place upgrade of Windows 10. Download the latest Windows 10 installation (via Media Creation Tool or ISO) and run an upgrade from the active system. Programs and data will be retained, while Windows itself is refreshed. 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If you’ve ever asked ChatGPT a question only to receive an answer that reads well but is completely wrong, then you’ve witnessed a hallucination. Some hallucinations can be downright funny (i.e. the Wright brothers invented the atomic bomb), others can be a bit disturbing (for example when medical information is messed up). What makes it a hallucination is the fact that the AI doesn’t know that it is making anything up, it’s confident in its answer and just goes on per normal. Unlike human hallucinations, it’s not always easy to know when an AI is hallucinating. There are some fundamental things you need to know about AI hallucinations if you’re going to spot them. What is an AI hallucination: The definition An AI hallucination is when an AI model produces outputs that are factually incorrect, logically inconsistent or completely made up. These hallucinations are mostly found in generative AI models, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Unlike programming bugs in software, AI hallucinations are not the result of a mistake by a programmer but rather come from a model’s learned probabilities. Here’s how to spot the different kinds of hallucinations. You see facts that are incorrect Factual hallucinations occur when an AI model produces information that is incorrect or unsubstantiated. An example would be “The Eiffel tower in Paris was built in 1999.” In reality it was built between 1887 and 1889. They come about due to limitations in the model’s training data or ability to check facts. These hallucinations can be particularly dangerous in the fields of law, education, and healthcare, where factual information is imperative. You get an answer not related to a question If an answer deviates too much from a question or breaks the logical flow of a conversation, then the AI is having a contextual hallucination. An example would be a question “How do I make stew?” followed by the answer: “Stew is tasty, and there are nine planets in the solar system.” This produces an output that is linguistically correct, but irrelevant to the topic. This type of hallucination occurs when the model fails to preserve previous context. You receive an answer that seems logically invalid If the logic of an answer is all askew, then the AI is having a logical hallucination. An example of this would be a statement like, “If Barbara has three cats and gets two more, she has 6 cats.” Clearly the logic fails here — the AI has failed at a task that requires simple math and reasoning. This can be a big problem for tasks that require problem solving. Pexels: Matheus Bertelli You notice a mismatch across AI modalities These types of hallucinations known as multimodal hallucinations occur in AI models that interpret multiple types of media. One example would be when a description doesn’t match an image. For example, a prompt to “ask for an image of a monkey wearing sunglasses” produces an image of a monkey without any sunglasses. These are the type you’d see in image generation AI models such as DALL E. How to test for a potential hallucination Hallucinations erode trust and can be quite dangerous in some circumstances — for example, when professionals are relying on the AI for correct factual answers. You can’t always tell if a hallucination is happening, but you can perform some checks to help you find out. Here’s what to do: Manually fact check Use search engines and trusted reference materials to check specific claims, names, dates, or numbers provided by the AI. If the AI cites sources, try to look them up. Fabricated or inaccurate source links are a common sign of hallucination. Use follow-up questions Ask the AI to elaborate on a specific detail it provided. If it struggles or introduces new, inconsistent facts, the original detail may have been invented. Ask for justification Ask the AI, “Can you provide a source for that?” or ask, “How confident are you in this answer?” A good model might point to its training data or search results; a model that’s hallucinating may struggle to back up the claim or invent a plausible-sounding source. Cross-compare models Ask a different AI model the exact same question. If the answers are wildly different, it suggests at least one model is incorrect. Related content Fake AI images are flooding the Internet. Here’s how to recognize them Can you spot a poisoned AI chatbot? 4 tips from a Microsoft security expert I started ‘vibe coding’ my own apps with AI and I’m utterly loving it Read...

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