What does "only supported on Windows 10" mean for chips?

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 31, 2016
Updated • May 22, 2018
Windows, Windows 10
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56

Whose idea was it to limit support for future generations of Intel and AMD chips to Windows 10? We don't know the answer to that, but the finger seems to point to Microsoft.

Microsoft revealed in January of this year that the next generation of silicon chips would only by supported by Windows 10, the company's new operating system.

The only exception to the rule was Intel's Skylake chip, which the company planned to support for a selection of (mostly business) devices.

Microsoft changed its course on Skylake support on Windows 7 and Windows 8 later on, but remained firm in regards to next gen processor support.

The change affects consumers and businesses alike. Consumers are limited by it, as they no longer have the choice to build a Windows PC running Windows 7 or 8.1 using one of the newer chips.

Businesses are even more affected by it than consumers, as most would not want to run unsupported hardware on previous versions of Windows.

Actually, it is unclear right now what would happen if one would try to run a Windows 7 or 8.1 computer with one of the new chips. The reason for this is simple: availability. The chips are not available yet which means that no one tried to install previous versions of Windows on a computer running these new chips.

Update: YouTube user JayzTwoCents published a video that showed him installing Windows 8.1 on a system with a Kaby Lake processor. He experienced some blue-screens, but was not sure whether those came from the unsupported processor, or the overclocked machine.

Windows 8.1 did install on the system however, so that's possible even if the processor is not supported officially by Microsoft. End

Microsoft failed to reveal what would happen if users would try to run new unsupported chips on old versions of Windows. Guesses range from "it would work" to "it would likely crash" or "not even install".

Third-party drivers could be created to fill the gap, but that would take time and it would only benefit home users but not businesses, as they are unlikely to run third-party drivers that are not official and not supported.

We will know more once AMD and Intel release their first Zen and Kaby Lake chips, but before then, it is unknown territory.

Did Microsoft push the chip manufacturers into a corner? We don't know that either. What we know is that AMD and Intel are supporting Microsoft's strategy.

It makes little sense from a business perspective for chip manufacturers to limit their customer base artificially though. Additionally, both Intel and AMD would have to come up with the idea on their own, and approach Microsoft about it independently, which seems unlikely as well.

Microsoft's strategy could drive some users and even businesses towards Linux, especially if they have no intention of installing Windows 10 any time soon or at all on their devices.

Now You: What is your take on this?

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Microsoft announced that next gen chips would only be supported by Windows 10. But what does that actually mean?
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Comments

  1. SurferMurf said on February 9, 2017 at 5:59 am
    Reply

    Been wondering about this problem, linux & win 10 only chips. It occurs to ask who are the ‘stakeholders’ in such cpu’s, with win 10 as it is & is becoming, & why? So, some questions:
    1. Is win 10 now or in the future less useable for hacking? More easily traced if attempted? I can certainly see governments & business everywhere being happy with this. But of course freedom fighters of oppression will not be.
    2. Built in obsolescence – at some point, probably sooner than now, browsers etc will not work if you don’t upgrade your OS. All are on win 10, no one can opt-out of updating for any length of time or MSoft will theoretically shut you down – why would browsers, flash, other apps keep supporting last months win 10? You can’t hold onto your older pc, you can’t repurpose it, no matter what you’re upgradeing motherboard, cpu, ram. That may happen every X number of years whether you want to or not, on every pc you’ve got. Good pcs that should run all your current needs, but are not allowed. I remember a former mac guy posting why he switched away – because macs were meant to be disposable computers. You don’t have much choice when the OS changes infront of you. I can see both intel & amd both liking this, whether you buy a new pc or upgrade, they win. More pcs bought, more hardware sold, because they have to be. Sort of as smart phones seem to be now, an excellerated cycle.
    3. The destruction of the ‘safety valve’ that linux and older windows represent. A safety valve that kept you from the vortex of win 10 constantly mutating updates. From what I understand win 10 can run certain linux programs but can’t run linux itself, and the new chips now or in the future may not run linux either. That drives a stake through the heart of 2 pain problems MSoft has had for some time, competing with previous versions of itself, & with migration to linux. So beyond the spying everyone talks about, MSoft eventually gets rid of competition except for Apple, which will have its own agreement with intel. Linux, older windows will run on older hardware, but like the P4 eventually that won’t seem enough. MSoft has also recently signed an agreement with phone cpu maker ARM, but I don’t know a what that entails.
    So, governments & business may win on this, most hacking seems to be done on windows machines. Hardware makers win, more hardware is bought. MSoft wins because pcs can’t be used except with the current version of windows. Perhaps Apple also wins if hackintoshs are no longer possible. Do I know enough to be certain of any of this? No, but I wanted to pose the question to those who might know better. Is this a viable arguement or not?

  2. Jason said on September 13, 2016 at 12:42 am
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    Just to be clear, SecureBoot currently can be disabled. Also, a lot of Linux distros offer UEFI support out of the box. These technologies so far have not proven to be impediments to installing Linux. However, SecureBoot itself may become an impediment in the future if OEMs stop allowing the user to disable it. But in that scenario, we can expect (a) not all OEMs will go down that path, (b) there will be non-volume hardware sales that do not have SecureBoot, and (c) the Linux community will hack the **** out of SecureBoot.

    So don’t worry.

  3. Graham said on September 4, 2016 at 12:39 am
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    It means it’s only supported on Windows 10. ;)

  4. Sheeples said on September 2, 2016 at 7:08 pm
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    UEFI is another nonsense for the customers. SecureBoot is “secure” because it secures Micro$oft incomes, as it prevents GNU/Linux and BSD OS installations.

    If anyone works for Micro$oft he will defend this tirannical position, but if you’re an humble customer you should raise one eyebrow and raise hell on earth at the minimal stripping down of your freedom.

    I expect to “own” the PC I bought but Micro$oft, Nvidia and AMD think differently.

    So, please, could any ARM Developer create a league with some minor taiwanese/indonesian microprocessors builder and give us all FREEDOM?

    It all comes down to Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, and the mass monitoring of the gullible customers. BIOS, GPU, CPU, Browsers… All is tailored to make you a customer, a buyer, a wallet to be stolen. Wake up!

  5. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 6:13 pm
    Reply

    Apparently, we’re not the only ones paying attention and looking at options other than Windows:

    http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-yoga-book-hands-on-2-in-1-ultraportable-blends-wacom-and-tron-31453618/

  6. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 4:33 pm
    Reply

    Don’t get your knickers all in a bunch people. The short answer is just wait. If chip makers stay along this path, sales will hurt and they’ll backtrack.

    …besides…if AMD had any sense, they’d let Intel flail with this while they continue to support older OS’s. It would be a great strategic move over the competitor.

  7. Anonymous said on September 1, 2016 at 5:20 am
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    Would this also mean that you can’t install Linux on your machine that has these chips?

    1. A different Martin said on September 1, 2016 at 7:41 am
      Reply

      Caveat: I’m not experienced or especially knowledgeable in this area, and I’m just giving a preliminary response until someone more expert chimes in.

      I know that recent versions of the Linux kernel explicitly support Skylake, and I assume the kernel developers are working on Kaby Lake support as we speak.

      However, from what I’ve read, “Secure Boot” on UEFI-based systems — which is pretty much all of them now, right? — at least used to be an obstacle to installing distros that didn’t pay Microsoft to use a signed shim boatloader. I think I read that Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, and Red Hat ponied up and can be installed and booted on Secure Boot systems without hassle, but don’t quote me on it.

      Now, Microsoft used to mandate that its volume Windows 8 licensees (computer OEMs and VARs, or whatever) make it possible for users to disable Secure Boot in their UEFIs. In other words, it was possible for users to go into the UEFI and change a setting so that Secure Boot was disabled, making it possible to install any Linux distro (I think) that supported UEFIs. With Windows 10, Microsoft changed the volume licensing terms to make that optional — i.e., they left it up to computer OEMs licensed to pre-install Windows 10 to decide whether to allow their customers/users to opt out of Secure Boot. I don”t know whether any OEMs went ahead and made Secure Boot mandatory, or whether it’s been possible to flash any restrictive mainboards with a non-Secure-Boot UEFI. (I also don’t know whether Microsoft offered any inducements to OEMs to lock out competing OSes by making Secure Boot mandatory. How unfairly cynical of me…)

      Anyway, I recently read that Secure Boot was discovered to be universally hackable, so if the hack is durable and isn’t beyond the abilities of mere mortals, maybe Secure Boot is no longer an obstacle. (In my recent experiments, I think I ran into at least one distro that said it couldn’t yet be installed on a GPT-format drive in a UEFI environment, but that sounds like it might be an entirely different issue. My computer has a BIOS and MBR drives, so I didn’t follow it up.)

      At any rate, it would be great if someone who really knows this stuff would post an authoritative answer. In the meantime, if you’re buying a new computer and want to be able to install any OS you want on it, make sure you can disable Secure Boot in its UEFI. (I think!)

      1. A different Martin said on September 21, 2016 at 9:11 pm
        Reply

        And here’s a related follow-up, hot off the presses:

        Lenovo reportedly blocking Linux on Windows 10 Signature Edition PCs (updated) | ZDNet
        http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-reportedly-blocking-linux-on-windows-10-signature-edition-pcs/

        referring to:

        Warning: Microsoft Signature PC program now requires that you can’t run Linux. Lenovo’s recent Ultrabooks among affected systems. : linux
        https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/53ri0m/warning_microsoft_signature_pc_program_now/

      2. Tom Hawack said on September 3, 2016 at 5:50 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous,
        You definitely have a character :=)
        OK, the debate is closed, unless you carry it on, of course.

      3. Anonymous said on September 3, 2016 at 5:14 pm
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        @Tom Hawack

        Me > “to close this off-topic discussion”:
        You: “To FINISH closing this off-topic debate”. Then: “Why not (…)?, then “Do you think (…)?” etc.

        My “personal responsibility” is to tell you “To (really) finish closing this off-topic debate” you must be in agreement with your affirmations and not erect your contradictions as a perpetual what you call “debate”. First its not fairplay for your interlocutor, secondly he/she must respect what he/she said. > The End.

      4. Tom Hawack said on September 3, 2016 at 1:06 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous,
        To finish closing this off-topic debate, I’ll just add this : you write “arrogant big brothers’ enterprises” and that’s the problem. Why not mention instead “arrogant enterprises”? It’s not a matter of “Big Brother”, it is when applicable the fact of certain companies (by the way often so-called multinationals). That in itself is a debate. Do you think other companies than American are saints, perfect, committed to ethics and the bad ones would be bad because and only when American?

        Are all French talkative and slip off the topic because this is my characteristic? If I get punched by a Chinese will I say Chinese are violent? If I get chatted up (“dragué” in French) by a native of Monaco will I return to Nice declaring that Monaco males are gay?

        Generalizing is, IMO, a psychological temptation or a soul’s deliberate intention to use demagogy in order to spread theories. I understand your experience, the drama you’ve described, but I am and will always be bothered with explanations which go beyond a responsibility to stick them with hierarchical groups which most often are not related in terms of causality. This is why I consider the person in front of me rather than his/her context, this is why I deeply dislike social and political theories based, built upon what remains a personal responsibility.

      5. Anonymous said on September 2, 2016 at 10:41 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack
        “the matters you describe impact you personally?”

        To be frank, to answer to your interrogation and to close this off-topic discussion, among other arrogant big brothers’ enterprises more for philosophical reasons, my resentment is old, very old. It is adressed principally to the Petroleum US Consortium due to the Torrey Canyon’s Disaster, and also later the Amoco Cadiz’s oil spill. This disaster for a large part ruined our lives. Not even a word of apology, i prefer not to give my opinion on the americans judges who treated us like dogs during years and years discussing on our pittance. We’ll never forget. Me and my family, my children and my grandchildren, etc, never.
        http://www.regardsurlemonde.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/maree_noire_deep_water_horizon-810×504.png

      6. Anonymous said on September 2, 2016 at 7:28 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack
        “Demagogy”… “and a certain style in their presentation”.

        In France you just have to wait one year or two that US Petroleum Compagnies invade your beautiful lands with their Hydraulic Fracturing to lose your style, trust me.

      7. Tom Hawack said on September 2, 2016 at 6:39 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous, may I ask you in what, if applicable, the matters you describe impact you personally? We know what you mention, this is the lot of freedom and what is done of it by many of us, though when one’s position and responsibilities are high anything considered valuable or bad becomes the flag of many to legitimate convictions built around demagogy. I’m not saying you are a demagogue, only that whatever speech that emphasizes on negative critics without pondering them with good ones may quickly be perceived as demagogy, when not as built-in hatred.

        I’ve already had this debate with a Frenchman here, yapadkoi if I remember correctly. This leads nowhere and is moreover off-topic. Perhaps I shouldn’t have interfered but I just cannot remain silent when I hear certain things, arguments (or their lack) rather than ideas. Long live ideas, pluralism, diversity (the pot of America) but they must be served, IMO, with built arguments and a certain style in their presentation.

      8. Anonymous said on September 2, 2016 at 6:16 pm
        Reply

        @Tom Hawack
        My opinion is based on facts, please try to convince the Ex Sulfurous President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Baroso instead, now working with Goldman Sachs, the first US Bank at the origin of the Mondial Economic Crisis which plunged millions and millions people in despair all over the world.

      9. Tom Hawack said on September 2, 2016 at 4:10 pm
        Reply

        @Anonymous,
        There are always disagreements. I’m not sure focusing on the States is the right approach. I’d rather consider a country’s foreign policy relatively to its power. If you think about it, given the super-power of the USA, their hegemony could be expressed more wildly than it actually is. We can wonder on what would be the behavior of our respective countries if they were in the position of the economical and military leader on the planet.
        I thought bashing the USA was over, not because the country is faultless but because, when you know the culture, the values of America you get to understand that liberty associated to justice is not, there as anywhere, obvious. Moreover the nation, the people and the establishment are, there as everywhere, two different entities and happen to diverge. But freedom of speech prevails, freedom to disagree and freedom to strive to change the country are a fact and are active. The USA are and remain Europe’s friend, I believe it truly. There is no conspiracy, occult powers, there is only a country where freedom is lived totally, for the best and for the worst.
        Politics, establishment aside, I love American people. I’m not saying you don’t, I’m only saying that we are now in a new era where, I believe, another approach than discrimination is making its way to understand before criticizing, and when critics remain and they often do, to consider that duality with time, good will and intellectual and moral honesty inevitably leads to evolution and progress. Minds are changing.

      10. Anonymous said on September 2, 2016 at 3:19 pm
        Reply

        Poor Europe attacked by its “Best Friend”… unfortunately as already in past, if USA continue in that way, many wars in perspective in Europe at the end. It seems hawks and cowboys trying to continue to impose their “NEW WORLD ORDER” initiated by Reagan & Thatcher had learned nothing from the Moyen-Orient. Poor USA too.

      11. Anonymous said on September 2, 2016 at 2:48 pm
        Reply

        I understand your point about UEFI, mine is something claiming to be secure helping criminals using ransonware to f*** you is a nonsense.

        When the European Commission will be too corrupted, when lobbies and states (like USA with the TAFTA) will try by all means to impose on European States what they don’t want such as OGM, hormone treated beef or chlorinated chickens, the abolition of all AOC, etc etc, it will be the explosion of the Europe. The General and Final Brexit.

      12. A different Martin said on September 2, 2016 at 9:01 am
        Reply

        @ Anonymous, re UEFI = nonsense:

        Well, GPT-format drives seem to be a big improvement over MBR drives. With GPT, you can have drives that are bigger than 2TB and that have more than just four primary partitions. I gather they offer much better corruption-recovery, too. GPT-format drives are better, and if you want to run GPT drives on a BIOS, especially under Windows, you’re looking at a number of impossibilities, limitations, and potential complications and hassles. Practically speaking, if you want to partition, format, boot from, and run GPT drives, you’re going to want a UEFI system.

        So, I don’t think UEFI itself is necessarily nonsense, but if you read the “Criticism” section in Wikipedia’s article “Unified Extensible Firmware Interface,” it’s pretty alarming for potential Linux users … and most of that alarm stems from the Secure Boot feature. The computer’s owner should be able to decide whether to require signed bootloaders and modules, not OEMs or Microsoft. If US antitrust and consumer protection law hadn’t been consigned to the “quaint and antiquated” bin along with the Geneva Conventions against torture, the Federal Trade Commission and DOJ Antitrust Division should have been investigating Microsoft and co-operating OEMs for “exclusive dealing” in violation of the Clayton Act several years ago. I guess we’ll have to leave enforcement to European antitrust authorities … if they haven’t been neutered, cowed, or corrupted, too.

      13. Anonymous said on September 1, 2016 at 10:46 am
        Reply

        UEFI > another nonsense

  8. Dude said on September 1, 2016 at 3:55 am
    Reply

    If you aren’t on linux yet, join us now.
    No M$ BS or rotten apple lockin.
    Freedom for all.

    1. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 4:49 pm
      Reply

      Tell that to the money man. They’ll respond with deaf ears, so the rest of us in IT get to continue buying MS crap.

      1. A different Martin said on September 1, 2016 at 7:53 pm
        Reply

        You remember the old business dictum, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”? That seems to have been replaced by, “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft,” but I wonder if that might not be about to change…

  9. Anonymous said on August 31, 2016 at 11:25 pm
    Reply

    If the only choice to play games on performing machines will be Windows 10, well i’ll stop playing. Since I know there’s arsenic in wine I’ve stopped drinking already. One more decision that will please my wife.

  10. A different Martin said on August 31, 2016 at 10:06 pm
    Reply

    Well, according to a report recently released by IT consulting firm Softchoice, only 0.75% of Windows machines in the US and Canadian businesses they surveyed were running Windows 10 at the end of the year-long “free upgrade” period. Windows 7 was at 91% (an increase of 18% during 2015), XP was at 5%, and 8 was at 4%. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was a big factor in the low adoption rate, but concerns about privacy, bugs, and actual upgrade costs (retraining, support, etc.) were mentioned as well. I don’t know whether Softchoice ran into this in their survey sample, but some businesses also have specialized software that simply doesn’t run on Windows 10. (I have a relative who works at a large medical research institution and they run important software that doesn’t work on Win10. It’s beginning to complicate purchases of replacement computers for the people who work there, with Skylake, and when Kaby Lake comes out and becomes mainstream, I expect it will get more complicated still.)

    When a consumer or business invests in an operating system environment — the OS itself, the set-up, the applications, the utilities, the learning/training, etc. — I think there is arguably a reasonable expectation that the OS manufacturer will endeavor to ensure that the OS will continue to be supported on mainstream hardware through the OS’s stated end of life. In Windows 7’s case, that’s mid-January 2020, and for Windows 8.1, it’s mid-January 2023 — not in late 2015 when Skylake started hitting the shelves, or in late fall 2016 when Kaby Lake is expected to come out. It’s up to courts and enforcement agencies to determine whether refusing to support Windows 7 and 8.1 on new hardware is a breach of contract, or an unfair or deceptive practice in trade, or a violation of antitrust law, but it does strike me as a unilateral changing of the previous understanding with customers mid-way through its term, by three vendors acting in concert. It’s disturbing to me as an individual user, and if I were an enterprise customer, I would be furious and alarmed, and would question whether I should continue to put my eggs in Microsoft’s basket in the future. Certainly, any business large enough to have an IT or computer support department, or even just a “computer guy” or two, should be considering a possible move to Linux.

    When it became clear that Microsoft was transitioning from selling software to selling subscriptions and user data, I realized that Windows 7 would be my last Microsoft OS and that I would switch to Linux. Being old, lazy, and set in my ways, I had hoped to defer the switch as long as possible, maybe even to January 2020. But if my computer dies and its replacement won’t run 7, or if Microsoft slips adware, nagware, “spyware” (telemetry), or bugs into the aggregate security rollups it starts issuing in October, it’s going to come sooner than I hoped. So, once again, I’ve started playing around with various Linux distros in VirtualBox, and I have to tell you, as an old, lazy, set-in-my-ways kind of guy, it’s been a little frustrating. I know how to do pretty much everything I need to do in Windows 7, without thinking. I have to re-learn all that, and with each distro and desktop environment, the way of doing it is a little different.

    For example, in Linux Mint, I wanted to install some of my special Windows fonts. The easiest way of doing that is to browse the Windows Fonts folder from Linux and double-click on a font. “Font Viewer” is supposed to pop up and if you see that it is indeed the font you wanted, you click on the Install button. Except that in Linux Mint 18, Font Viewer is broken. There’s a workaround, where you comment out a line in Font Viewer’s configuration file. To do that, you need root (~Administrator) access, and I couldn’t for the life of me find a way in the GUI to edit the configuration file as root or to launch the text editor as root. So I decided to log out and log back in as root. Except that by default, root was not offered as a logon at the Welcome screen. So I had to log back in under my username, change the Welcome screen options, log back out, log back in as root, edit Font Viewer’s configuration file, log out and in again, and that was that. Easy peasy, right? I’m guessing I might face similar frustrations with Windows 10, but probably to a significantly lesser degree.

    [Sidebar: I avoided looking into command line options for a couple of reasons. First, I’m trying out Linux distros not just for myself but also for a friend who is an ordinary, non-computer-geek civilian. Second, my eyesight is going to hell and I’m working on a 15″ laptop. The command line can be dangerous when you have trouble reading what you’ve typed. Some day, when I’ve vetted distros for genuine, all-GUI user-friendliness, and I have a humongous external monitor where I can scale up the display to my eyesight’s content, I’ll get into the CLI.]

    Also, working in a virtual environment creates its own set of hassles — difficulty getting the right virtual machine “guest additions” installed in some distros (*COUGH* PCLinuxOS *COUGH* KaOS *COUGH*), very slow access to shared Windows folders containing a lot of files, general performance overhead, and the like. (That being said, I did manage to install and run IrfanView x64 and its plugins in Wine in Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon in VirtualBox on Windows 7! It was slow, but it worked!)

    Anyway, I’m committed enough that I just ordered a new drive to do some physical installs on so I can test my short-listed distros with all of my CPU cores, all of my RAM, and no virtual machine snags or slowdowns. (I’ll be interested in seeing how IrfanView runs in Wine on that.) I’m probably going to continue grumbling for many months to come about having to re-learn how to do the dumbest, simplest things, and I’m probably going to miss some Windows-only utilities until I find decent Linux replacements for them and get used to them. But being able to choose what information gets sucked out of my machine and by whom, being able to choose what software I use and how I configure it — I’m referring here to Windows 10 imperiously uninstalling, re-installing, or re-configuring certain apps and settings — being able to choose exactly which individual updates I might want and whether and when to install them, being able to move my system to a different machine without reinstalling from scratch, etc., etc., etc. … well, that’s pretty appealing. (Come to think of it, except for being able to move the whole system to a different machine without reinstalling, it’s kind of like Windows 7 used to be before telemetry and all-in-one rollups! It was a nice run, while it lasted…)

    1. John in Mtl said on August 31, 2016 at 10:58 pm
      Reply

      If one of your machines dies and you still want or need to run windows 7 or 8.1, just go out and buy a refurbished and relicensed machine. There are tons of them out there, most are high quality, dependable and really affordable.

      1. A different Martin said on September 1, 2016 at 2:32 am
        Reply

        I’m typing this on a corporate-discard ThinkPad T510 right now! (I think it might be one of the last few ThinkPad series to have a keyboard that’s designed for actual usability rather than for Mac-like esthetics, as the current ones are.) The thing is, I have a lot of data (on a 2TB internal drive), and I’m drooling at the prospect of USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt 3 transfer speeds to an external backup drive. (I have a USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter, but it’s limited to half the top USB 3.0 speed because of some bus limitation or other, and sometimes it “unmounts” — not physically, but software-wise — all on its own.) I’m not going to get USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt 3 support with Windows 7. I would get it with Windows 10, but that’s a non-starter for me, so that’s one more reason to switch to Linux (with a recent kernel) on Kaby Lake, or Skylake with extra hardware on board. But yes, for users who must remain with 7 or 8.1, refurbished and new-old-stock Haswell and Broadwell gear will be the answer if Microsoft, Intel, and AMD stick with their scheme not to support 7 and 8.1 on most new and future hardware.

        Jeez, you’d think Intel and AMD would have learned something from the drop in desktop and laptop sales when Microsoft introduced Windows 8. I guess we know who wears the pants in that business relationship…

  11. Martin Brinkmann said on August 31, 2016 at 7:26 pm
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    Probably unrelated, but Sony announced today that it will offer its new 4K streaming service for 7th Gen Intel Core processors exclusively starting in 2017:
    http://www.wirelessinsider.co/topics/sony-pictures-to-bring-premium-4k-movies-to-pcs-using-intel-7th-gen-processors/

  12. CJT said on August 31, 2016 at 7:16 pm
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    Considering how much time and money go into supporting legacy OSs, this will hopefully result in lower CPU/hardware prices in the future.

  13. Jeff said on August 31, 2016 at 6:15 pm
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    I’d wager “unsupported” means any new processor instruction extensions which the new CPUs use but which Windows 7 and 8 don’t have pre-existing support for, won’t be getting used on those OSes.

    Any software that takes advantage of these extensions will default to using x86_64 (or whatever other accelerated extensions are supported/appropriate).

    Zen/Kaby Lake are still going to be x86_64 CPUs. And Zen isn’t going to be a non-traditional design requiring special software support for optimal performance like Bulldozer. Short of a giant-screw-you patch that explicitly and arbitrarily blocks Windows 7/8 from running on these specific CPUs, Windows 7/8 will run on these CPUs just fine, albeit without the absolute latest handful of acceleration extensions in use.

    And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least AMD provided a driver for 7/8 filling in any gaps that Microsoft isn’t willing to fill in themselves.

  14. olavmaltine said on August 31, 2016 at 3:35 pm
    Reply

    MS should start selling cars. They have the right people and the right attitude. Still, to be frank, I am completely baffled how MS ist getting away with their BS. It does not say too much about their customers. Seems the majority of them is swallowing everything MS throws at them.

    So, as painful as it is, I have to accept MS will succeed. What can I do about it ? Best is to take my time, there is no need for me to have the latest drivers, etc. Even right now I am only using a very small fraction of my computers capabilities. I don’t need and don’t want to talk to cortana, I have no desire to receive nightly phone calls from my refrigerator or washing machine and I truly give a big fat pups about synchronizing and the cloud. I am human and would like to stay that way.

  15. vosie said on August 31, 2016 at 3:32 pm
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    It proves how corrupt companies are the Microsoft, Intel and AMD. It’s called cartelling and planned obsolescence. (Maybe even the USA government (or NSA) is involved in this deal.) They want to enforce people to use Windows 10.

    1. The Flash said on September 1, 2016 at 1:41 pm
      Reply

      I don’t think it’s fair to compre Intel and AMD together. Intel is the one who sneaks all this NSA-backdoor shit, and AMD doesn’t do that. AMD respects its customers more than Intel ever would.

  16. Tom Hawack said on August 31, 2016 at 11:32 am
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    My take on this is very simple. I do not, have never and will never accept to be forced. A partnership between a chip manufacturer and an OS developer appears to me as highly problematic. But in no way will I move to Win10 by obligation.
    It seems all winds are uniting to push me, us, many towards Linux. The lands of freedom are imprisoned whenever an agreement between two requirements aims to force either or both. The Scorpio syndrome as I call it, that is that when no escape is possible auto-destruction is considered a valid option, would be mine in that I’d rather abandon totally my computing environment than be obliged to choose Windows10 because a chip manufacturer. Fortunately Linux appears as the new promised land, the land of freedom. Microsoft, the story of an announced decline.

    1. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 4:43 pm
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      Uh…dude…what world are you from, man?

  17. Corky said on August 31, 2016 at 9:38 am
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    Personally i blame the chip makers more than Microsoft, it is after all the chip maker who’ve made the decision not to develop drivers for their latest chips.

  18. Chris said on August 31, 2016 at 8:53 am
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    If just Intel or AMD did this, it would be questionable. The fact that both Intel *and* AMD are doing this demands thorough investigation. I don’t know any of the fancy words, but collusion, market control, racketeering, monopolistic practices, and corruption all come to mind.

  19. Nebulus said on August 31, 2016 at 8:39 am
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    I believe that this is pure BS. In order for this to happen, those processors would have to miss something that would render the installation of older Microsoft OS impossible. And I don’t see exactly what that “something” might be…

    On the other hand, I’m sure MS will only support them on Win10, but that means nothing for the end user; however, if you are a business and you WANT MS support, then you will have no choice but to install Win10.

    1. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm
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      As an IT professional that’s worked at both front-end support all the way up to running the show and doing project and program management for around 15 years, not to mention dealt with Windows since its inception, I’ve only used MS support for re-activating Windows less than 5 times and that’s all I’ve ever used MS support for. I realize I’m not everyone else, but the reason I don’t use it is because its never useful in the first place. All it takes is looking at a handful of the many error messages you get as a user to see its not helpful in the least. You don’t need their support.

      Chip makers can try going down this path and already hurting sales will get much worse, faster.

    2. Rob said on September 1, 2016 at 4:41 pm
      Reply

      As an IT professional that’s worked at both front-end support all the way up to running the show and doing project and program management for around 15 years, not to mention dealt with Windows since its inception, I’ve only used MS support for re-activating Windows less than 5 times and that’s all I’ve ever used MS support for. I realize I’m not everyone else, but the reason I don’t use it is because its never useful in the first place. All it takes is looking at a handful of the many error messages you get as a user to see its not helpful in the least. You don’t need their support.

      As I said in this thread, chip makers can try going down this path and already hurting sales will get much worse, faster.

    3. Corky said on August 31, 2016 at 10:52 am
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      That something would, or could be graphics drivers, I’ve not looked into if the IGPU is changing much with Zen and Kaby lake but it seems a strong possibility, obviously we won’t know until the chips hit the market if the GPU drivers will work with older OS’s

  20. Jorge said on August 31, 2016 at 8:36 am
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    2 new computers in my place are already in Kubuntu and Mint. Installed different linux to check which one is usable and better. My laptop is Windows but it’s because the Windows was included as freebie(the Single Language version). If I buy new laptop years later and if there’s no more freebie, I would 100% likely to switch to linux.
    My only concern is my gaming computer.. games in linux is pretty much non existent..

    1. mikef90000 said on September 1, 2016 at 4:30 am
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      Linux with an Xfce desktop should be very comfortable for most Windows immigrants. I keep XP and 2000 around for those few apps I haven’t yet found a good equivalent for. My Edgerouter X and wireless access point even run versions of Linux.

      Not a gamer, but for games on Linux check out the Steam catalog. IIRC there was something like ~1500 available titles and rising.

    2. Al said on August 31, 2016 at 3:59 pm
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      I am on Manjaro Linux, which is a rolling release OS based on Arch. Any game I have so far tried without a native Linux option I have been able to get to work using PlayonLinux. But I don’t play competitively and I don’t go for first-person shooters, where milleseconds count. There is definitely a gap between when a new game shows up and when it is playable on linux. So hard-core gamers may have some issues.
      But I wouldn’t say gaming is non-existent. Gaming is probably 30 percent of what I do on my linux.

  21. Yuliya said on August 31, 2016 at 8:36 am
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    Idk, I think it’s just micro$oft desperately trying to convince users into using Windows10. Why would it not work? Unpatched 7 works perfectly with Ivy Bridge, and that’s a three years gap. Even Vista works fine..

    1. T J said on August 31, 2016 at 12:49 pm
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      Microsoft has already back tracked on dropping support for Skylake. It is possible (probable ?) that they will do the same with Zen and Kaby Lake.
      Anyway, why do so many people think that it will be the end of their computing world if they are not able to use PCs with the new chips installed if they don’t install Win 10 ?

      Why, except for Gamers, do people think that they are missing out because they can not use the “latest and greatest” chip sets.
      Windows users are becoming more and more like the Apple Lemmings.
      “If I don’t have the newest, shiniest Iphone, my friends will shun me because they have”

      Does your PC/Laptop REALLY need HD graphics and be able to display a spread sheet a nano second faster than your current machine ?
      The majority of users probably could not care less as long as their machines boot and they can access browsers, Facebook, etc.

      1. Velocity.Wave said on September 2, 2016 at 6:51 am
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        I don’t have to justify or explain to people like you TJ, why I want fast hardware/processors, multiple cores, and lots of RAM for my computing experience.

        I work hard for my money (a lot of hours), and I choose to spend it on faster hardware, which is valuable to me (but obviously not for you).

        Why it’s so important for you to annoyingly preach and ridicule those who value progress in the IT sector is beyond me… but I suspect with your personality, you would have done well under an anti-progress governmental system like the old soviet-russia.

      2. Yuliya said on August 31, 2016 at 3:13 pm
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        I kind of agree. While performance is not going to be an issue any time soon, there’s this thing – what if it breaks and I need to replace it? I’m going to have to buy something from the latest family of CPUs. I don’t think I will find a new 3770k, it was released in 2012 or so.

        Again, I’m not too concerned of me not being able to run Win7 on whatever Intel comes up next with, because I know I will be able to do so. I think this is pure marketing b/s and scare tactics which micro$oft has been using for the past year in order to convince users to switch to their latest OS.

      3. Tom Hawack said on August 31, 2016 at 1:11 pm
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        I agree on the idea of asking ourselves what we need, what we wish independently of a planetary marketing brain-washing aiming at disrupting our objectivity when answering the above questions.

        Remains the fact that one can disagree with a trend, a policy even if one doesn’t feel concerned after having answered to the above questions in terms which mechanically remove oneself from the problematic.

        Being pragmatic may sometimes correspond, IMO, to an egocentric positioning, which is also an hidden aim of marketing policies. I don’t know if this is what should be called political engagements, if so in the wide sens of the word, but I do believe that nowadays more than ever idealism is essential to balance an excessive pragmatism, excessive to the point that it may lead to an “after me, what the heck?”. Idealism, not demagogy, realism rather than cynicism in fact. Realism is not to state that life is a jungle, realism is to consider that a human being is far more than a predator.

  22. infojunkie said on August 31, 2016 at 8:18 am
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    This is one of the main reasons driving me to start the processes of slowly converting over to Linux for everything.
    This move is one of the most childish uncalled for things I have ever seen them do. Windows 8.1 is still in main steam support until January 9, 2018 By that time both Zen and Kabby Lake will both be common main steam CPUs.

    As a business it’s pretty hard not to feel completely betrayed that you can’t keep up-to-date hardware on an OS until the end of it’s mainstream support. Yes MS want’s everyone to use windows 10 but they also sold us already on using windows 8.1 until January 9, 2018 for all things mainstream.

    At this point the fact of the matter is MS is failing hardcore to live up to their own past and current promises and because of that windows 10 is looking more and more like an unacceptable high risk.

  23. buck said on August 31, 2016 at 8:09 am
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    This sort of horse crap is exactly why I’ve now migrated to Linux.

    W10 is pure malware, with spyware built into the core of the operating system to capture everything you do and phone it home. Microsoft’s core business will soon be Big Data and their business practices resemble a mafia syndicate in order to get everyine using their new data capture and mining tool.

    If you care even remotely about your privacy you will do as I’ve done and jump ship to Linux, as those using W10 now effectively owns all your personal data and the rights to capture all your activity if you are using W10.

    1. Tom Hawack said on August 31, 2016 at 11:39 am
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      I entirely agree, buck. I’m on my way to Linux after having known but Microsoft ever since Windows 3.x
      The company has become an insanity, and I weigh my words.

    2. zund said on August 31, 2016 at 11:18 am
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      > Microsoft’s core business will soon be Big Data.

      fun fact: terry myerson (VP of windows and devices) was founder/ceo of “Interse Corporation, which made websites and data mining software before being acquired by Microsoft in 1997” (wikipedia)
      also: http://news.microsoft.com/1997/03/03/microsoft-acquires-interse/

      so they have a data mining/big data-guy as head of their OS-division. explains a lot, imho.

    3. ilev said on August 31, 2016 at 10:45 am
      Reply

      I am jumping, after 35 years with Microsoft, to MacOS.

    4. Anonymous said on August 31, 2016 at 10:43 am
      Reply

      I am jumping, after 35 years with Microsoft, to MacOS.

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