Microsoft updates support policy: New CPUs will require Windows 10:ZDnet

I can't see Enterprises being pushed to upgrade to Windows 10 in 18 months, especially on enterprises that have thousands of seats.

To give just 18 months with these support policies is likely not what companies want to hear. This doesn’t mean that Windows 7 will be end of life in July 2017, but if you can’t run it on new hardware, this is going to put a dent in device sales too. If companies are not ready to move to Windows 10, they may have to stick with older hardware.

To me, the oddest part of the announcement is who it is coming from. When Intel releases a new CPU, it is generally the motherboard makers working with Intel who provide the correct BIOS emulation modes and drivers for older versions of Windows. It’s somewhat odd that Microsoft is the one announcing this news rather than a company like Intel or AMD stating they won’t be supporting the older platform.

 

SOURCE
 

After July 2017, computers on the supported list that are still running Windows 7 will still get security updates, but any updates specific to that platform will not be released if it risks the reliability of other Windows 7 or 8.1 platforms.

 

I read that as no updates for W7 on unsupported (not in the list) hardware!

Greets!

Source?

But still, if true, there are plenty of pre-Skylake computers out there. I have two of them and they have Win 10 support. I wouldn't expect them to run WinME properly, though.

Source?

Your source...

But still, if true, there are plenty of pre-Skylake computers out there. I have two of them and they have Win 10 support. I wouldn't expect them to run WinME properly, though.

Answer:

 

To me, the oddest part of the announcement is who it is coming from. When Intel releases a new CPU, it is generally the motherboard makers working with Intel who provide the correct BIOS emulation modes and drivers for older versions of Windows. It’s somewhat odd that Microsoft is the one announcing this news rather than a company like Intel or AMD stating they won’t be supporting the older platform.

 

Greets!

That would be no updates for post-Skylake computers not on the list. MS is warning folks which computers to buy, if they want to run Win 7, and there are plenty.

This will simply keep Haswell based CPU's pricing at high levels & as I've already seen, the price for the i7-4790K has risen on Newegg by a little over $10. May need to get one before they're gone, just to have it.

Though to be honest, there's hundreds of millions of off-lease former business/corporate models to choose from that has more security (such as a TPM module) that'll work great with Windows 7 Ultimate/8.1 Pro. Most are cleaned up, tested & redistributed with a refurbished COA affixed to the side or bottom & includes a Recovery partition for reloading the OS. Some has the actual OS reinstalled with the computer, using the original restore media that'll show the computer's branding & support phone number when one types 'System' into the Start Menu & click it. 

Just less than two weeks ago, purchased a very nice Optiplex 780 DT edition on eBay for $114 ($94+$20 shipping), has the best Core 2 Quad ever released in the Q9650. Though I upgraded the Windows 7 Pro OS to Windows 10 Pro & it's by far been the best install of 10 I've had, in defiance or protest of this policy, will revert to the image of Windows 7 Pro taken just before the upgrade to 10 & afterwards, run 8.1 Pro or my main OS in Linux MInt. 

There's no need to 'lock' a CPU into a certain OS, plus many new PC's still ships with 7 Pro. This could also spell trouble for the Linux market not in the immediate future, maybe 7-10 years down the road as current systems gets older. Evidently Microsoft is twisting the arms of Intel, AMD, Qualcomm & others hard, or more likely, greasing their palms very well. I suspect the latter. So who will Apple & Google with their offerings turn to for CPU's for their OS's? Their usershare is small, yet still profitable, otherwise both brands would have ditched the computer business altogether in favor of their more profitable smartphone ventures. 

This will also likely mean Secure Boot will be baked into the UEFI of new computers with post-Skylake CPU's, which likely will be a short lived run. There has already been one issue uncovered in some of these models that will require a firmware update, so now is as good time (or excuse) as any to stop producing these & embrace the Microsoft Way of doing business. 

Cat

Yeah, well this is really the end of Windows sales.  Talk about tyrannical.  So now if you want to buy new equipment and keep your old Windows, you'll have to go Linux online.  18 months is less than 2020 or 2023, so they are renegging on those promises.  Which means, all those lies about the 200 million must be mostly unsold inventory and Xboxes or other not-really-PC stuff.

I wonder if MSFT realizes how this announcement is a death knell for MSFT.  Truly.  Once business sees how transition to Linux is easier than expected (it sure is surprising me), then they won't WANT to go back to Windows.  The bigger the business the truer this is, because it's not hard to hire Linux folk in-house to make a GUI which functions like Windows, and not hard to ape the interface of MS Office.  THEN, they can sell their adjustments to other big firms, and recoup the R&D cost.  Easy.

End users only need a familiar interface.  MSFT ripped that away from them starting in 2004, so finally enough will be enough.

There's no more hope now that MSFT will wake up and smell the coffee.  It's gone into Mussolini Mode.

Edited by brainout, 17 January 2016 - 06:20 AM.

Yeah, I got my two Dell 780's for $300 and $250 respectively at dellauction exactly as you explained; and just last week got my third Latitude 6530 for $300 (forgot I had even bid on it, in dellauction, FHD, i7, bells and whistles, Win7 32-bit which I prefer).

With this much lead time, AMD might end up being the beneficiary, if it courts the Linux folk and makes drivers, etc.  So in 10 years, maybe it will be more popular, and Intel will regret getting in bed with MSFT.  I know I sure do.

This will simply keep Haswell based CPU's pricing at high levels & as I've already seen, the price for the i7-4790K has risen on Newegg by a little over $10. May need to get one before they're gone, just to have it.

 

Though to be honest, there's hundreds of millions of off-lease former business/corporate models to choose from that has more security (such as a TPM module) that'll work great with Windows 7 Ultimate/8.1 Pro. Most are cleaned up, tested & redistributed with a refurbished COA affixed to the side or bottom & includes a Recovery partition for reloading the OS. Some has the actual OS reinstalled with the computer, using the original restore media that'll show the computer's branding & support phone number when one types 'System' into the Start Menu & click it. 

 

Just less than two weeks ago, purchased a very nice Optiplex 780 DT edition on eBay for $114 ($94+$20 shipping), has the best Core 2 Quad ever released in the Q9650. Though I upgraded the Windows 7 Pro OS to Windows 10 Pro & it's by far been the best install of 10 I've had, in defiance or protest of this policy, will revert to the image of Windows 7 Pro taken just before the upgrade to 10 & afterwards, run 8.1 Pro or my main OS in Linux MInt. 

 

There's no need to 'lock' a CPU into a certain OS, plus many new PC's still ships with 7 Pro. This could also spell trouble for the Linux market not in the immediate future, maybe 7-10 years down the road as current systems gets older. Evidently Microsoft is twisting the arms of Intel, AMD, Qualcomm & others hard, or more likely, greasing their palms very well. I suspect the latter. So who will Apple & Google with their offerings turn to for CPU's for their OS's? Their usershare is small, yet still profitable, otherwise both brands would have ditched the computer business altogether in favor of their more profitable smartphone ventures. 

 

This will also likely mean Secure Boot will be baked into the UEFI of new computers with post-Skylake CPU's, which likely will be a short lived run. There has already been one issue uncovered in some of these models that will require a firmware update, so now is as good time (or excuse) as any to stop producing these & embrace the Microsoft Way of doing business. 

 

Cat

I guess that instead of donating some of the older PC's I receive to the Hospice store, clean these up, box & hoard to have spare Linux PC's in the future. In the last couple of years, donated 4 that was late XP/early Vista models, being that this is the trend that Microsoft & the hardware OEM's has signed a pact for, need to make adjustments as to what I do with the (usually) desktop PC's that's given to me for assisting others. 

The cool thing is that with many of the models on the market that shipped with the initial release of Windows 7, down to XP, parts are very plentiful & low cost on eBay, plus both eBay & PayPal guarantees that customers won't receive DOA equipment. While some components (such as the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650) are still a little pricey at $65-$100, there's many more that's dirt cheap. As corporations upgrades, major buyers takes all of these computers & auctions to the highest bidder in lots of 500 or more & are re-auctioned on eBay. They can sell a decent running PC for $100 & still make money, and the customer is satisfied. 

This Optiplex 780 as configured, cost 3x what my XPS 8700 did a little over 2 years ago, and that's not counting the GPU I added. Am getting another Core 2 Quad, I believe the Q9400, to replace a Core 2 Duo E8400 with, because it multitasks a lot better. There's nothing worse than a computer sitting for 2 weeks with only a dual core CPU & upon boot, everything wants to upgrade at once. A quad core, even going from 3.0GHz to 2.5GHz, is still a good thing to do for this type of situation, as it'll be hard to saturate 4 cores running at once. The cache is the same as the E8400 Core 2 Duo. 

http://ark.intel.com/products/35365/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q9400-6M-Cache-2_66-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

So we have lots of options available, and will for a long time to come.

Cat

This will simply keep Haswell based CPU's pricing at high levels & as I've already seen, the price for the i7-4790K has risen on Newegg by a little over $10. May need to get one before they're gone, just to have it.

 

Though to be honest, there's hundreds of millions of off-lease former business/corporate models to choose from that has more security (such as a TPM module) that'll work great with Windows 7 Ultimate/8.1 Pro. Most are cleaned up, tested & redistributed with a refurbished COA affixed to the side or bottom & includes a Recovery partition for reloading the OS. Some has the actual OS reinstalled with the computer, using the original restore media that'll show the computer's branding & support phone number when one types 'System' into the Start Menu & click it.... 

 

 

Cat

I am thinking of getting one of these. Not a speed demon but a HP dc7900 business computer with Core2Duo 3GHz, 4GB or RAM, 2TB drive and Windows 7 pro for $146. This would be replacing an old emachines Athlon XP. Also found a Dell 755 Q6600, 4GB or RAM, 500GB hard drive, Windows 7 pro for $162. That may be the better way to go after reading your post.

Edited by JohnC_21, 17 January 2016 - 09:21 AM.

Microsoft Makes Windows 7 And Windows 8 Support Worse: Forbes

So the question is will Micosoft pull this agian when Windows 10 reaches end of life in 2025?

 

Talking on its Windows Blog, Microsoft has announced it will now stop support for installations of Windows 7 or Windows 8 if they are on new or upgraded computers running the latest chips from Intel INTC -10.34%, AMD or Qualcomm QCOM -4.44%. Specifically these are listed as ‘Kaby Lake’ (Intel), ‘Bristol Ridge’ (AMD) and Qualcomm’s ‘8996’ (the base for the Snapdragon 820). Between them these chips will dominate sales of all new desktops, laptops, hybrids and tablets in 2016.

In fact Microsoft is going even further than this by also refusing to support Windows 7 and Windows 8 on Intel’s current generation ‘Skylake’ processors, with the exception of a “list of specific new Skylake devices”. This list includes the Dell Latitude 12 and XPS 13; HP EliteBook Folio and G3 and Lenovo ThinkPad T460s and X1 Carbon. Even then support on those devices will only last 18 months ending on 17 July, 2017.

 

Edited by JohnC_21, 17 January 2016 - 01:41 PM.

So what's the alternative? Should Intel stop making newer and better processors until Win 7's End of Life? Should Microsoft spend vast quantities of time and money for the 6 guys who want to run Win 7 on the newest hardware? We have to reasonable, here. Most home users and small businesses have OEM licenses.We are not affected. Enterprise users have enough clout that, if they make enough noise and wave enough bucks, Microsoft will accommodate them, just as they did when XP support. died for the rest of us.

(Just to be a PITA, I tried installing Win 98 on a formerly XP machine with TahrPup currently installed. It didn't work. I didn't expect it to, though I must admit that the problem could be with Grub.)

Not much I guess. From this Ars Technical article

Microsoft's announcement makes no mention of its server operating systems, leaving open the question of whether these will be subject to the same policy. This has the potential to raise hackles: if the Skylake generation Xeon E3-1275 v5, for example, remains supported by the Windows 8.1-equivalent Windows Server 2012 R2, or the Windows 7-equivalent Windows Server 2008 R2 beyond July 2017, then one might very well ask why the desktop counterparts cannot do the same. Conversely, if those processors don't remain supported then companies deploying such servers are going to have to plan for a very hasty upgrade: the server equivalent to Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, isn't even out yet.

Our expectation is that while the timelines may not be identical, the same broader policy—new hardware needs new software—is likely to prevail. Server tools such as System Center Configuration Manager have already moved to a continuously developed "as a service" model, and it seems inevitable that this will prevail with Windows Server 2016

 

Whatever happens, it's going to be interesting.

Yes, it will be interesting.

With Skylake there was a tectonic shift. Embrace the new or be left behind. It has happened, before. It will happen again.

Yes, it will be interesting.

 

With Skylake there was a tectonic shift. Embrace the new or be left behind. It has happened, before. It will happen again.

Truly nothing new here.  As Platypus said earlier, "Backward compatibility can't go on forever."   Neither can support for every version of Windows prior to whatever the latest version of Windows happens to be.  'Twas ever thus, and the same applies to old versions of Linux and every OS I've ever worked with, a number of which no longer exist, nor do their makers. . .   RIP DEC.

Edited by britechguy, 17 January 2016 - 08:29 PM.