Microsoft Quietly Cuts Off Windows 7 Support for Older Intel Computers

Megalith

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Despite Microsoft’s promise of support until 2020, Windows 7 users running older hardware are getting the shaft: those with a Pentium III, for instance, will no longer be able to install monthly rollups or security-only patches. This is related to a bug that Redmond is allegedly ignoring, leading some to believe that MS is “already killing off Windows 7.”

Up until June 15, Microsoft was promising that it would fix the bug that prevented Win7 Monthly Rollups and Security-only updates from installing on older pre-SSE2 machines. After June 15, Microsoft wrote off the pre-SSE2 population, without notice or fanfare, and retroactively changed the documentation to cover its tracks.
 
Despite Microsoft’s promise of support until 2020, Windows 7 users running older hardware are getting the shaft: those with a Pentium III, for instance, will no longer be able to install monthly rollups or security-only patches. This is related to a bug that Redmond is allegedly ignoring, leading some to believe that MS is “already killing off Windows 7.”

Up until June 15, Microsoft was promising that it would fix the bug that prevented Win7 Monthly Rollups and Security-only updates from installing on older pre-SSE2 machines. After June 15, Microsoft wrote off the pre-SSE2 population, without notice or fanfare, and retroactively changed the documentation to cover its tracks.

Same argument is made with every new release. In 10 years it will be the same cry baby shit for Windows 10.
 
In 10 years it will be the same cry baby shit for Windows 10.
Nobody will miss Windows 10. Most people didnt choose it; they ended up with it, many were force-converted to it in the middle of the night without their consent. It's tolerated at best.

Microsoft dropping all the W10 bloat and going back to the drawing board to engineer a proper successor to 7 can't come soon enough.
 
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Nobody will miss Windows 10.

Microsoft dropping all the W10 bloat and going back to the drawing board to engineer a proper successor to 7 can't come soon enough.

You are a minority.

Even the naysayers that cry about Windows 10 for years end up switching sooner or later and wishing they did. Windows 7 is very old. It will not be supported forever, and being mad when support is cancelled is not justified in the least.
 
Non-SSE2 systems will include Athlon, Athlon XP, and Athlon MP systems as well, which were all Pentium 3 and 4-era competitors.
Not that this is bad or anything, as I remember how poorly Windows XP SP3 started to run on aging Athlon XP systems (XP SP2 ran good); couldn't even imagine Vista or 7 running on one of those, even with a SSD.
 
Nobody will miss Windows 10.

Microsoft dropping all the W10 bloat and going back to the drawing board to engineer a proper successor to 7 can't come soon enough.
This isn't going to happen - there is big money in big data, and data collection is at the heart of that market.
Windows 10 actually is an exceptionally high performing OS, and while I can say I don't agree with the inability to properly turn off all data telemetry and collection processes, for enterprise and even many portable computing market segments, it is unbeatable.

Also, the uncontrollable feature updates which add and remove OS functionality at Microsoft's whim is very annoying, but Android and iOS are really no different in this area; use GNU/Linux or BSD if you want to get away from this.
Windows 7 is extremely long in the tooth, and while it will be missed, the legacy problems it presented won't be.

It's just the era we live in now, and if you want to change this, vote with your wallet and use the plethora of options available to you. :cool:
 
hmm its quite possible that a intel PIII running a relatively up to date windows 7 is more secure than win 10 running on this decades intel processors

all you koolaid drinkers can get on board the newer is better boat, ill happily raise my glass to you all as your drown.
 
My only issue with Windows 10 is how redundant it is to do simple shit that takes 2-8 more steps than it did in Window 7. Like, ya know, Safe Mode. Making basic system changes in Control Panel...It's so heavy handed now.
 
You are a minority.

Yes a "minority" of hundreds of millions of PCs, to Windows 10's bare "majority" of 51% that took years of GWX trojan tactics with people waking up to a new version they didn't ask for, or just being the only choice on new PCs. Meritorious.

Windows 7 is very old. It will not be supported forever, and being mad when support is cancelled is not justified in the least.

If 7 is "old" then its more an indictment of 10 than anything, since the latter hasn't really improved upon it much beyond the high-DPI, scheduler and kernel improvements that were already present in 8, while doing not much else significantly new or better for core users.
 
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Pentium III? Yikes. Between my P3 and Win 7's release, I had a Athlon, Athon 64 and an e6300. Of those, only the latter touched 7 (and only until 1/2010 when I got an i7860).

I can't even imagine how awful it'd be to run a CPU that old.
 
Wow, all this time? Took them no time at all to screw win8 users out of support last year on new cpu's even though the product was still in full support phase. This news is not a shock at all, only that it took them this long is.
 
Windows 7 is still about as modern as Windows 10, and Windows 10 is about as old as Windows 7, since Windows 10 is an extremely minorly-updated version of Windows 7 with the biggest change being that it's stuffed full of spyware and personal data-harvesting, and that it offers less control to the system owner. Both Win 7 and 10 have identical security patches, which says a lot.
 
Windows 7 is extremely long in the tooth, and while it will be missed, the legacy problems it presented won't be.
Can you be more specific on what problems 7 presented? I am unaware of any and continue to use it as my daily driver on my production and gaming rigs. I have a Surface with Win10 and like it well enough. However I couldn't point at something it fixes that was broken/problematic in Win7.
 
Yeah, who wants USB3 and thumb drives with sequential write speeds of 300+MB/sec, NVMe, or affordable 8-core processors!

All of that is available for Windows 7.

Like has been said, Windows 10 is basically a reskin of Windows 7 with tons of bloatware, spyware, adware, data-theftware added in, while offering less control over the OS for the system / Windows owner.
 
Same argument is made with every new release. In 10 years it will be the same cry baby shit for Windows 10.

Nobody will miss Windows 10. Most people didnt choose it; they ended up with it. It's tolerated.

Microsoft dropping all the W10 bloat and going back to the drawing board to engineer a proper successor to 7 can't come soon enough.

Except Windows 10 won't be going anywhere for quite some time. Microsoft has switched to the OS X model, where Windows 10 will be the official name for the foreseeable future, with more frequent incremental build updates (like founders, anniversary, creators, etc. etc.)

The name "Windows 10" will likely be around much much longer than either XP or 7, but it will likely slowly evolve both under the hood and in its UI with every creators type update, to be different and meet the needs of the time. Windows 10 in 2025 may look significantly different than Windows 10 did on launch, but it will - if they don't change their minds - likely still be called Windows 10.
 
Yes a "minority" of hundreds of millions of PCs, to Windows 10's bare "majority" of 51% that took years of GWX trojan tactics with people waking up to a new version they didn't ask for, or just being the only choice on new PCs. Meritorious.



If 7 is "old" then its more an indictment of 10 than anything, since the latter hasn't really improved upon it much beyond the high-DPI, scheduler and kernel improvements that were already present in 8, while doing not much else significantly new or better for core users.
As an enterprise user I am not able to find anything that windows 7 does better than windows 10 for me.
 
Except Windows 10 won't be going anywhere for quite some time. Microsoft has switched to the OS X model, where Windows 10 will be the official name for the foreseeable future, with more frequent incremental build updates (like founders, anniversary, creators, etc. etc.)

The name "Windows 10" will likely be around much much longer than either XP or 7, but it will likely slowly evolve both under the hood and in its UI with every creators type update, to be different and meet the needs of the time. Windows 10 in 2025 may look significantly different than Windows 10 did on launch, but it will - if they don't change their minds - likely still be called Windows 10.

Win10 in 2025 will be eventually stripped of every single function besides a basic web browser going on current history and events of every upgrade pulling out yet something else from the os, and all that was pulled will then be a separate download from the store to increase traffic numbers. Yet somehow the thing will still take up 50GB of hdd space in its base form.
 
Win10 in 2025 will be eventually stripped of every single function besides a basic web browser going on current history and events of every upgrade pulling out yet something else from the os, and all that was pulled will then be a separate download from the store to increase traffic numbers. Yet somehow the thing will still take up 50GB of hdd space in its base form.

Naysayers have been saying the same bullshit since Windows XP.
 
I seem to remember reading something about 7 starting to get phased out around 6 months ago, not just the update issue. Seems like their moving the clock forward more so.

I use W10. Don't love it, tolerate it. Did like it when it first came out and then this 6 month build update BS started. Never know when something is going to get broke, or need to manually find a new driver or app version. Not to thrilled that stuff keeps getting moved or buried into it either and all the while crap I don't want just 'shows up' on the task bar. Glad I remember the names so I can ask 'cortana' how to find it-LOL. Really don't like how they keep trying to make Edge take over everything either. BTW, hey you kids. . . .get off my desktop/lawn and yeah Pepperidge Farms remembers!
 
I seem to remember reading something about 7 starting to get phased out around 6 months ago, not just the update issue. Seems like their moving the clock forward more so.

I use W10. Don't love it, tolerate it. Did like it when it first came out and then this 6 month build update BS started. Never know when something is going to get broke, or need to manually find a new driver or app version. Not to thrilled that stuff keeps getting moved or buried into it either and all the while crap I don't want just 'shows up' on the task bar. Glad I remember the names so I can ask 'cortana' how to find it-LOL. Really don't like how they keep trying to make Edge take over everything either. BTW, hey you kids. . . .get off my desktop/lawn and yeah Pepperidge Farms remembers!

I stopped the Windows update service around the version 15xx period. Never have any issues.
 
It's just the era we live in now, and if you want to change this, vote with your wallet and use the plethora of options available to you. :cool:
"Plethora" of options? It's Linux, crApple or Micro$oft. Windows 7 was hardly "long in the tooth." There was nothing that I needed that Windows 10 can do that Windows 7 cannot. I tried fruitlessly to get Windows 7 working on a new laptop, but ASUS apparently made some deal with the devil (MS) to only release Windows 10 touchpad drivers - they went as far to eliminate previously available Windows 8 drivers that might have worked with 7.

I'll ride Windows 7 on my current Ryzen desktop computer for as long as driver support will allow me.
 
So, let me get this straight....

SSE2 is an instruction set that was introduced in 2001 with the Pentium 4 processor which shipped until 2008. That's ten years ago (give or take).
Thus, the Pentium III processor did not have the SSE2 instruction set. Those processors shipped until 2003. That's fifteen years ago (give or take). Also, as far as I can determine, the Pentium III was a 32-bit processor, not a 64-bit processor.

Somebody please tell me what I'm missing here, because I'm placing the usable lifetime of a computer in between five years and ten years.
 
This isn't going to happen - there is big money in big data, and data collection is at the heart of that market.
Windows 10 actually is an exceptionally high performing OS, and while I can say I don't agree with the inability to properly turn off all data telemetry and collection processes, for enterprise and even many portable computing market segments, it is unbeatable.

Also, the uncontrollable feature updates which add and remove OS functionality at Microsoft's whim is very annoying, but Android and iOS are really no different in this area; use GNU/Linux or BSD if you want to get away from this.
Windows 7 is extremely long in the tooth, and while it will be missed, the legacy problems it presented won't be.

It's just the era we live in now, and if you want to change this, vote with your wallet and use the plethora of options available to you. :cool:
Plethora of options..... So windows or linux. Not sure that is a plethora.
Then factor linux does not run everything yet, so only 1 if you can't get by with linux.
 
Windows 7 is extremely long in the tooth, and while it will be missed, the legacy problems it presented won't be.

I've been using Windows for around 30 years now. Windows 7 might be the apotheosis of Windows. It was essentially a "pure" desktop OS that evolved over 20 years before the rise of mobile, cloud and AI. We're simply in a different time. A "true" successor to Windows 7 appeals to some folks in places like this but is it really anything that would fly off shelves these days? Probably not. There's a lot of resistance to wildly popular technologies in places like this. And there are legitimate reasons for some of the criticisms but nonetheless, still fucking wildly popular. How the hell in 2018 do you promote a "pure" desktop OS? What the hell would that even mean to many folks that live on their phones?

Windows 7 was great for what it was. I've been using Windows 10 daily on all of my PCs for three years now. I hear all of the issues and horror stories and that's not good. I personally haven't had any more problem with Windows 10 than Windows 7 or 8.x. As much as people will bash Windows 10, what the hell else is there for me to use? Windows 10 works with fucking everything I need for work and play across multiple devices. Windows 7 would be pointless on something like a convertible Surface Book 2 with a high DPI screen. I use a lot of Microsoft Store apps, watch a lot of 4k Netflix with 5.1 surround. Again I get it if Windows 10 doesn't work for you or your situation. There's nothing that can replace it personally, we're moving to it aggressively at work.

For something that some bash as hard as Windows 10 and has hard as I've looked into alternatives, there's just no where else to go in my situation. There's just isn't.
 
I've been using Windows for around 30 years now. Windows 7 might be the apotheosis of Windows. It was essentially a "pure" desktop OS that evolved over 20 years before the rise of mobile, cloud and AI. We're simply in a different time. A "true" successor to Windows 7 appeals to some folks in places like this but is it really anything that would fly off shelves these days? Probably not. There's a lot of resistance to wildly popular technologies in places like this. And there are legitimate reasons for some of the criticisms but nonetheless, still fucking wildly popular. How the hell in 2018 do you promote a "pure" desktop OS? What the hell would that even mean to many folks that live on their phones?

Windows 7 was great for what it was. I've been using Windows 10 daily on all of my PCs for three years now. I hear all of the issues and horror stories and that's not good. I personally haven't had any more problem with Windows 10 than Windows 7 or 8.x. As much as people will bash Windows 10, what the hell else is there for me to use? Windows 10 works with fucking everything I need for work and play across multiple devices. Windows 7 would be pointless on something like a convertible Surface Book 2 with a high DPI screen. I use a lot of Microsoft Store apps, watch a lot of 4k Netflix with 5.1 surround. Again I get it if Windows 10 doesn't work for you or your situation. There's nothing that can replace it personally, we're moving to it aggressively at work.

For something that some bash as hard as Windows 10 and has hard as I've looked into alternatives, there's just no where else to go in my situation. There's just isn't.
I would pay for a windows 7 successor. They had a hell of a time just giving 10 away.
 
Can you be more specific on what problems 7 presented? I am unaware of any and continue to use it as my daily driver on my production and gaming rigs. I have a Surface with Win10 and like it well enough. However I couldn't point at something it fixes that was broken/problematic in Win7.
One issue off the top of my head is drivers/support/functionality of cellular modems.
Windows 10 improves on these areas on both modern and old cellular modems, where as with Windows 7 there are constant disconnects, driver lockups, etc., and this is on a wide range of hardware I've seen in the last 3+ years with multiple vendors of cellular modems.

It's kind of like Windows 2000 Pro and XP with support for Wi-Fi - it wasn't originally there (depending on the year and OS) and was more of an afterthought after the 802.11 standard was set with 2000 Pro and XP.
Where as with Vista and 7, they both handled Wi-Fi connections much better, either using the built-in tools and software available, or the vendor-specific software and tools - all of this is assuming the same drivers are used.

Again, I'm not knocking 7 and will use it until the very end, but personal use and enterprise use (and support) are two very different environments of operation.
I have a co-worked who swears up and down that his one personal desktop running Vista *never* had any issues - and yet all I remember through most of Vista's support-era were the lack of drivers available on launch, the then-abysmal 64-bit software/driver support, the super-fetch lag issues (this was before SSDs were mainstream), and a huge range of other software and driver-related problems that arose in enterprise environments that home/personal users would never see.

The exact same is happening with Windows 7 right now, and while it might work great for home/personal users (it works great for me!), but in enterprise environments, the legacy issues and cons arising are starting to outweigh the pros it once had (it used to work great for me).


Before everyone starts to say "Linux doesn't have these problems" - depending on the branch, oh yes it certainly does!
Every Linux OS has a supported hardware and software range, and don't get me wrong, there are things on Linux with getting drivers and software to work that would be a dead-end on Windows, but this only really applies to personal use and some very special cases in enterprise environments - hack jobs and work-arounds are certainly not mainstream in enterprise, and stability and uptime are the most important things.

Linux, like Windows, has rolling hardware and driver support - just look at most service-life or EoL lists for these operating systems, and you can have a rough guesstimate of what hardware will be supported and what won't.
For personal or home users, that's great, but for enterprise, that just won't cut it, sadly.

Take it from me, and just look in my sig - I have a Sharp X68000 Expert-HD from 1989 running NetBSD 7.0.1 from 2016 - and people thought running Windows 7 from 2009 was rough on a Pentium III system from the late 1990s, ha! :D
 
Allow consumers to legitimately use Enterprise LTSB and we can start talking :ROFLMAO:
There is nothing stopping them from purchasing it now, there is a paperwork process and it isn’t cheap but you can do it. Just gotta pay your yearly licensing fees.
 
"Plethora" of options? It's Linux, crApple or Micro$oft. Windows 7 was hardly "long in the tooth." There was nothing that I needed that Windows 10 can do that Windows 7 cannot. I tried fruitlessly to get Windows 7 working on a new laptop, but ASUS apparently made some deal with the devil (MS) to only release Windows 10 touchpad drivers - they went as far to eliminate previously available Windows 8 drivers that might have worked with 7..
I have had these issues as well with newer hardware.
I was going to get an Apollo Lake system working with Windows 7, until I realized that there are literally zero USB 3.0/3.1 Windows 7 drivers for it.

Believe me, I feel your pain, but yes, Windows 7 is long in the tooth (it is nearly a decade old, and will be nearly 11 when it is fully EoL), and yes, there are things that Windows 10 can and needs to do (telemetry aside) that Windows 7 cannot do and cannot support.
Could Microsoft have incorporated these features and functionality into Windows 7?

Yes, yes they could have.
But they would be cannibalizing their own new product segments (Windows 10 & Server 2016+) if they did that, and the cost of R&D to support an older OS without their data collection tools would have most likely been more costly and less advantageous than just going with Windows 10 and having it built-in from the get go.

Remember, Microsoft cares about Microsoft, not their users - and nearly every major corporation out there is just like this, it isn't *just* Microsoft, not hardly. ;)
 
Except Windows 10 won't be going anywhere for quite some time. Microsoft has switched to the OS X model, where Windows 10 will be the official name for the foreseeable future, with more frequent incremental build updates (like founders, anniversary, creators, etc. etc.)

The name "Windows 10" will likely be around much much longer than either XP or 7, but it will likely slowly evolve both under the hood and in its UI with every creators type update, to be different and meet the needs of the time. Windows 10 in 2025 may look significantly different than Windows 10 did on launch, but it will - if they don't change their minds - likely still be called Windows 10.
Couldn't have said this better myself!
Will make support in enterprise much easier for years to come as well.
 
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