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And keeping a Windows 10 system connected to the internet exposes it to what amounts to RCE that's only exploitable by Microsoft.

You can get extended security updates. They cost money, but there's ways around that, and Microsoft probably won't audit your 3 PCs. For a business though, yes you'd better pay or upgrade.

> They cost money, but there's ways around that

I checked out what one well-known torrent tracker has to say about these extended updates, and sure enough, I found a torrent called "Windows 7 Ult + KB3125574 by killer110289 (х64) (Ru) [10/04/2020] + авторский загрузчик + Office 2019 (2020.03) RePack by KpoJIuK + ESU Update март 2022" and several others which apparently have those updates applied.

I also wonder what would happen if you build a windows image out of 7's shell/explorer but 10's everything else.

Put it behind a good firewall and don't run any wide open services on it and you'll be fine. I have Vista, MacOS 10.4, and Windows ME machines all running at home without issues.