Microsoft: New CPUs Will Require Windows 10

Megalith

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This will certainly give businesses something to think about.

In a change to its longstanding support policy, Microsoft says PCs based on new CPU architectures, including Intel's Skylake chips, will require Windows 10. A list of preferred systems will support older Windows versions on new hardware, but only for 18 months.
 
Hahahahaha, last straw for me.
Switching to Arch for all my systems now (pretty much do 99% of PC activities on Archlinux as it is anyways, only loss is Windows gaming, but PS4 should have that pretty well covered).
 
I'm fine with that. Adobe doing that for me to open raw files back in the late 2000s didn't ruin my life. I'm sure this won't either. Though I am curious how the hell you can lock out architecture.

Sounds like Microsoft really wants to go the way of Mac.
 
It all seems a bit pushy even for MS.

Collusion with the silicone folk?

Let the lawsuits begin....
 
Blessed AMD please deliver us.

dont count on it..

Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support... Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel's upcoming "Kaby Lake" silicon, Qualcomm's upcoming "8996" silicon,and AMD's upcoming "Bristol Ridge" silicon.

if I understand it correctly, `its meaningless unless you need support `..and how many of us here have ever asked MS for support? `
 
I'm fine with that. Adobe doing that for me to open raw files back in the late 2000s didn't ruin my life. I'm sure this won't either. Though I am curious how the hell you can lock out architecture.

Sounds like Microsoft really wants to go the way of Mac.

I sincerely hope you are kidding.
 
It all seems a bit pushy even for MS.

Collusion with the silicone folk?

Let the lawsuits begin....

Think a lawsuit is possible if it's arguable that Apple has been doing this for a long time? I'm sure there's way to bypass windows 10 hardware limits like how people have tried putting OSX on an amd cpu. But of course it's not supported by Apple at all.
 
I sincerely hope you are kidding.

I'm not actually. People have a bitch fit about shit like this all the time, I"m not really one of those guys. It's like the IT version of people threatening to move to Canada if someone from the opposite political party wins office.

The way I see it is this

Microsoft wants everything to be windows 10. It's their new version of OSX. They don't plan on releasing a windows 11, it's all 10 now from what I read. They are future proofing their support by now forcing windows 10 on people. Do I agree with it? Oh hell no, but I'm not the person calling in to get support from microsoft. In my it work for end users, they will probably all go to windows 10 anyways so I have no issues there.

I want to note that I HAVE NO PERSONAL problems with this, but it doesn't mean I think it's the right thing to do.

in 2 decades of watching people have a bitch fest about not getting what they want, I've learned the best thing in the world to fix that shit is time. EIther the fire dies or people realize there is no issue to begin with (The Adobe CC subscription plan), or an alternative comes to the market that provides what's needed.
 
I'm not actually. People have a bitch fit about shit like this all the time, I"m not really one of those guys. It's like the IT version of people threatening to move to Canada if someone from the opposite political party wins office.

The way I see it is this

Microsoft wants everything to be windows 10. It's their new version of OSX. They don't plan on releasing a windows 11, it's all 10 now from what I read. They are future proofing their support by now forcing windows 10 on people. Do I agree with it? Oh hell no, but I'm not the person calling in to get support from microsoft. In my it work for end users, they will probably all go to windows 10 anyways so I have no issues there.

I want to note that I HAVE NO PERSONAL problems with this, but it doesn't mean I think it's the right thing to do.

in 2 decades of watching people have a bitch fest about not getting what they want, I've learned the best thing in the world to fix that shit is time. EIther the fire dies or people realize there is no issue to begin with (The Adobe CC subscription plan), or an alternative comes to the market that provides what's needed.

After reading it further I'll have to agree with the reasoning somewhat. As an IT admin it fucking sucks but it is what it is. Windows 7 is quite old already and if it wasn't for the fact that MS can't seem to figure out exactly what Windows 10 needs to be for business users. We would have started migrating by now instead of continually beta testing it. I wouldn't expect new processors to be backwards compatible to a several year old OS but MS has done it themselves by including such support for previous OS's.
 
This perpetual backwards compatibility has actually held back both chip and OS development as there is too much legacy crap built into hardware and software ... both Intel and MS have made some changes to backwards compatibility with their last few product iterations ... although I don't think the Cortez approach (burn the ships behind you) is perfect for this I would like to see some collaborative effort with software and hardware companies to create totally new and optimized technologies (even if they necessitate the purchase of totally new software) ... I would expect some form of emulation for older programs though
 
In other new, new gasoline will no longer work in new cars. Sorry folks, time to upgrade your car.
 
Aren't skylake chips currently running on windows 7?

That was my first thought too.

Apparently this only means, that you can't ask for help from MS support if you don't run Windows10. When did they ever help anyway?

This is just another chapter in the soap opera " MS is trying to push you to use W10, in the most hideous ways"
 
Yes all they need to do is to make a vague statement about 'requiring WIn10' and every possible non-tech oriented user will take it at face value. They won't stop for a second to think if the statement has any truth to it.
 
Is this the best MS can come up with to get people to upgrade? Sooner or later people are going to get tired of this shit and move on to something else.
 
I agree, its really a non-issue once you think about it. Of the people who buy new machines, if you build it yourself your normally good enough to not need ms support. And if something does go wrong your savy enough to go to a forum like here and ask for help from people who can actually answer the question.

Now if they said this in reference to graphics cards then there would be a bigger issue as no support could be read as no drivers. Processors can last years now thanks to the stagnation of the Intel vs Amd crap but video cards can get upgraded yearly.
 
So Windows is no longer an operating system, but a driver for Intel CPU.

Hello AMD! Long time no see!
 
Is this the best MS can come up with to get people to upgrade? Sooner or later people are going to get tired of this shit and move on to something else.

So what other 7 year old operating systems are fully forwards compatible with Skylake?
 
Aren't skylake chips currently running on windows 7?

But Windows 7 isn't fully forwards compatible with Skylake. In particular, Intel has done a lot of work on power efficiency such as new sleep states and speed shift. Even the 10240 build on Windows 10 didn't fully support Skylake as it was missing support for speed shift.
 
On Windows, WMC is my killer app.

Microsoft killed WMC in Windows 10. Absolutely insuring that I wouldn't "upgrade".

Now they are making sure I don't upgrade to new Hardware as well.

They really seem to be working hard at holding back PC upgrades.
 
I'm glad this happened now and not 10 years ago. I honestly have no problem running on a Haswell for the foreseeable future. With 8GB RAM and an SSD, this is as fast as I need it.
 
Some of you people need to read. Intel has said they will no longer support old OS like Windows 7, so they will not be making drivers for it anymore. Therefore, MS will no longer be validating windows 7/8.0 for new hardware. What would be the point?

"Ill go AMD!!! HA-HAA!"

AMD is in the same boat, not releasing drivers for new hardware for ancient OS.

This isn't a MS thing, it is a hardware vendor thing. MS is not going to validate and old OS on new hardware when the OEM is not going to write drivers for it. Windows 7 will run on a skylake system, but all features of that new platform will not be supported.
 
Can someone please buy Microsoft a clue.
Remember all you Win 10 blowhards , it's free. Hahaha
 
Never been a huge MS fan, but just always used it cause it was what was around for me since windows 3.1 days. Now it looks like it's finally time to move on, especially after the 8.1 support dropping BS.
 
meh, its ok. W7 is the new XP. Just wondering what MS has in response to the huge W7 Professional buidup of pro-biz line laptops, desktops etc with skylake cpus. Do they just right them off a free upgrade card?
 
meh, its ok. W7 is the new XP. Just wondering what MS has in response to the huge W7 Professional buidup of pro-biz line laptops, desktops etc with skylake cpus. Do they just right them off a free upgrade card?

The funny thing is at the walmart store i work they just had the managers computers upgraded from win xp to win 7 last week. I think that the major companies are the ones that have the most to get annoyed from all of this. Most of the software we use isnt compatible with windows 10, hell one of our major pieces of software looks like it runs in a dos box.
 
This is a little misleading if this is what was talked about a few weeks ago. You can run older versions of windows or any other OS on these chipsets you just can't fully utilize all features as the OS has to be coded to take advantage of them. I can understand them not rewriting windows 7, 8 and 8.1 to take full advantage of new hardware. That is what the new OS is for, to give you new kernel level changes to a platform. You also will need to upgrade your Linux kernel to take advantage also assuming all features are supported there.
 
Does that mean these new CPUs will be unable to run Windows 7, period? There will be no chipset drivers released for these CPUs on Windows 7?????

I ARE CONFUSED.
 
What I find absolutely terrifying is that these asshats are now making noises about shipping BIOS/EFI updates through Windows Update...

So, who CARES if your Windows install was nuked when the fucking thing IRRETRIEVABLY BRICKS YOUR MACHINE?

I hope to fuck Microsoft gets sued silly over this bullshit.

I also hope that hardware vendors universally start shipping DualBIOS setups. Because if Microsoft actually runs with this plan, we're going to need it...
 
What I find absolutely terrifying is that these asshats are now making noises about shipping BIOS/EFI updates through Windows Update...

So, who CARES if your Windows install was nuked when the fucking thing IRRETRIEVABLY BRICKS YOUR MACHINE?

I hope to fuck Microsoft gets sued silly over this bullshit.

I also hope that hardware vendors universally start shipping DualBIOS setups. Because if Microsoft actually runs with this plan, we're going to need it...

Is this still a thing. I haven't had a bios update brick a computer since 2003
 
Does that mean these new CPUs will be unable to run Windows 7, period? There will be no chipset drivers released for these CPUs on Windows 7?????

I ARE CONFUSED.

No, you can still run Win 7 on future chips.

This has to do with Microsoft support policy. If I understood it correctly, Microsoft is giving a grace period for a list of Skylake devices where they will continue supporting these devices running Win 7 and 8 for 18 months. After that, if these devices needs support, they will need to be upgraded to Win 10.

From Microsoft's blog:
Through July 17, 2017, Skylake devices on the supported list will also be supported with Windows 7 and 8.1. During the 18-month support period, these systems should be upgraded to Windows 10 to continue receiving support after the period ends. After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for these configurations, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices.
 
What I find absolutely terrifying is that these asshats are now making noises about shipping BIOS/EFI updates through Windows Update...

So, who CARES if your Windows install was nuked when the fucking thing IRRETRIEVABLY BRICKS YOUR MACHINE?

I hope to fuck Microsoft gets sued silly over this bullshit.

I also hope that hardware vendors universally start shipping DualBIOS setups. Because if Microsoft actually runs with this plan, we're going to need it...

They're not just talking about shipping uEFI updates via Windows Update, they're already doing it. I have a brand new Dell XPS 15 and one of the first Windows updates I got was a uEFI update. I honestly think that distributing uEFI updates via Windows Update is a pretty bad idea, they're going to go out to people who don't understand what they are and could very well brick their systems. For me, I'm pretty safe because I know not to turn off a computer doing a BIOS update and my system is a notebook (so it's on a battery). What if your power supply isn't terribly stable? Also, sometimes bios updates break compatibility with hardware components or introduce bugs.

As for dropping support for new CPUs, I totally understand why they don't want to throw money down a hole like supporting new hardware on old software, sure. I don't think they're communicating this very well and I'm sure the backlash will hit them in the ass. Other types of hardware have drivers managed by the hardware vendor and they often don't support obsolete OSes. I think the only reason there are drivers for current hardware on Windows 7 is that the driver model is basically the same and requires very little work to support.

Frankly, I think anyone running anything but Windows 10 on a Skylake machine is missing out on a lot of features like built-in support for NVMe and Thunderbolt 3, but Microsoft is being really heavy-handed here and they've already annoyed a lot of people with their Windows 10 upgrade popups. I like Windows 10 and the whole forced upgrade thing bothers me.
 
No, you can still run Win 7 on future chips.
Probably if not only because AMD and Intel will want to sell hardware while Windows 7 still has a significant market share, like with corporate system replacement. Whether or not that support is first class is iffy. It could be primarily available to major OEMs in order to fulfill client support contracts, with little to no end user support.

There has already been precedent where some recent SoCs have no Windows 7 or earlier support at all. Those are particular products made to fill the low price niche of cheap tablets or laptops (first with Windows 8, then 8.1 and 10), and so AMD and Intel do not even bother making drivers for Windows 7 or earlier. In that segment, I wouldn't expect future low end SoCs to have working hardware in Windows 7 either.
 
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