The paid support will be minimal, and increase in cost.
“As part of Custom Support — which according to analysts, costs about $200 per PC for the first year and more each succeeding year — participants receive patches for vulnerabilities rated “critical” by Microsoft. Bugs ranked as “important,” the next step down in Microsoft’s four-level threat scoring system, are not automatically patched. Instead, Custom Support contract holders must pay extra for those. Flaws pegged as “moderate” or “low” are not patched at all.”
So on an XP machine, should automatic updates be on or off?
(with AU on) The conspiracy theorist in me thinks MS will keep making XP slower and more bloated to get you to upgrade.