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Microsoft: Only the Latest Version of Windows Will Support New CPU Generations (windows.com)
Joe_Dragon sends news from Microsoft about how the company will support Windows now and in the future. The company says PCs built with Intel's Skylake chip, and other new architectures in the future, will require the latest version of Windows for support. This doesn't take effect right away; Windows 7 and 8.1 will be supported on older chips until their planned end-of-life dates, in 2020 and 2023 respectively. They'll also be supported on a list of current Skylake devices for the next 18 months. After that, only the latest version of Windows will support integration between the operating system and new CPU features. "For example, 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." Microsoft also mentioned that for new supported systems, the company will "ensure all drivers will be on Windows Update with published BIOS/UEFI upgrading tools." The submitter adds, "Putting BIOS/UEFI updates in to the Windows 10 auto- / forced-update system may open Microsoft to paying $600-$1,000+ to replace broken laptops. If Windows tries to update BIOS/UEFI at a bad/risky time (like during power instability in a big storm), it could lead to an update loop or worse."
wow microsoft, you are really working OVERTIME to make sure we all really hate and despise your horrible joke of an operating system.
just say no to windoz 10
As long as the chips adhere to the X86/x64 standards, how relevant is this announcement? Yes, newly introduced extensions and features may not be backported to Windows 7, but unless this OS will not run at all on next-gen silicone, this is nothing but FUD.
Am I missing something here? Do Skylake et al. really require substantial modificaitons to existing OSs?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Seriously, how much longer are you Microsoft holdouts going to put up with this imperialistic, authoritarian bullshit from Microsoft? They are doing everything they can to jam their spyware/malware OS down your throat whether you asked for it or not: as you well know if you have 7, Vista, 8, or 8.1, you're getting it shoved in your face, installed whether you ask for it or not, and if somehow you manage to dodge all that, they're still trying to sneak in their 'telemetery' (read as: spyware/malware) updates onto your systems so they can collect your personal data, steal your files, and whatever else it is they're doing that qualifies as cybercrime. When is someone who has the power to do so going to step in and stop them?
Go ahead, Microsoft shills, mod me down to neg one troll, go right ahead, you're just proving that what I'm saying is true by trying to silence me -- but you can't, and you can't silence everyone else out there who is saying the exact same things!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We're currently at the point where Linux is pretty much at the point where it is no longer necessary to run Windows on a machine. The only real reason to run Windows outside of a VM today is, essentially, games and all the other applications that require certain hardware features. Which are few and far between by now.
Linux gaming is gaining steam (you may keep the pun), so that problem should be sorted by 2020. Most applications that are unavailable in Windows (mostly specialized applications that have no counterpart in Linux) will work in a VM.
There is hope that by 2020 saying good bye (or rather, good riddance) to Redmond is quite painless.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's still not safe enough. I run Windows inside a virtual machine on Linux inside a virtual machine on OS X.
New chips are generally always backwards compatible. What MS is saying is that new features / flags / instructions will not be exposed.
Shrug.
Skylake chips support some new power management features that allow the chip to throttle based on load far more efficiently than older chips. Microsoft is not adding special support to that to Windows 7 for example. The chip will still work on Windows 7 but not all features will work.
If you use a Debian install from 5 years ago it also won't support any of those new power management features and they are not going to backport those features. You can install a new kernel and a new version of some of the power management libraries, that will probably involve rebuilding a lot of user space and in the end you are probably going to break something else. What you would have to do is just use a distribution new enough to support all the features on your new processor.
OSX is going to do EXACTLY the same thing. Apple is not going to backport skylake power management to a 5 year old version of OSX and all the risks that could have. They are going to take the newest version, work out the details on that, validate it and support it.
Intels and AMDs new processors will continue to work on older Windows and Linux versions just like before. It is just that Microsoft has officially announced they are not going to backport new processor features to older operating system versions.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
Microsoft really wants everyone off Windows 7 ASAP, apparently. They probably just want to make sure there are no more XP-style holdouts like last time. By saying you can't put anything other than Windows 10 on new hardware you get from manufacturers, that's a pretty big stake in the ground for traditional enterprise desktop customers. Traditional desktops are on an 18-month production cycle, but companies typically stick with the same OS version for as long as possible unless there's a real reason to upgrade. This is going to pretty much force enterprises to move to 10 at the next hardware cycle. So, Windows 7 will probably be done on new hardware pretty soon. I'm not a big fan of making PCs appliances, but I'm an old fart so I might as well get with the times. :-)
On the other hand, it might be interesting to see what happens to Windows when the need to support all the legacy hardware falls away. Part of OS design for an open platform is a compromise because you can't use every single cool new chipset feature, you have to provide support for IDE hard disks, you need to allow for 10 year old architectures, etc. Phone manufacturers like Apple write the OS directly for the processor and hardware in the devices which might allow them to take advantage of a very specific feature and assume it will always be available on any system the OS runs on.
I wonder how Microsoft is going to handle VMs.
You REALLY have to stopp polluting the discussion with facts.
Next to my usual ubuntu studio setup, I find win10 closeto unusable. Windows has got worse since win2k, and continues to do so.
John_Chalisque
systemd? Seriously? Get over it man! And Gnome 3 and KDE stuff as well.
You are trolling here. Your argument is lame. You blame Gnome 3 and systemd to make Linux be like Windows and you conclude Windows 10 will then be found much better by people. Really? You are just trying to coat your old complains with new frosting.
However, I believe Microsoft is perfectly entitled to drop support for newer processors in old versions of Windows. Supporting old versions of Windows cost money and doesn't gather money anymore. Microsoft has made it clear; Windows 10 is the last stop and Windows 10 will be a rolling distro. They clearly no longer play the marketing confusion game with multiple versions of Windows. They will put the money where it is likely to profit. Supporting old versions of Windows is not profitable whatever the prima dona think about how better they were.
Now, I really fear for the enterprise I am working for these days. They are just starting to migrate from Windows XP to Windows 7 on the desktop. Soon they will be forced to migrate to Windows 10 as the old generations of Intel processors will be phased out. Someone will have to kick his own arse before being kicked hard.
Achille Talon
Hop!
"Putting BIOS/UEFI updates in to the Windows 10 auto- / forced-update system may open Microsoft to paying $600-$1,000+ to replace broken laptops. If Windows tries to update BIOS/UEFI at a bad/risky time (like during power instability in a big storm), it could lead to an update loop or worse."
Laptop... power instability in a storm....
I'd like to add back to the submitter: Laptops are the least likely thing to suffer from power instability in a storm, unless your battery is completely dead and can't ride through a basic power outage, in which case I doubt your laptop is worth $600-1000 anymore.
...and I suspect they know it, this is their ALL-IN-OR-NOTHING last nail in the coffin investment, too bad they didn't smarten up and joined the club instead of trying to go down screaming and burning.
...with STEAM...as they where true gamers). I bought a system based on their recommendations, and I was NOT disappointed.
I'm an 50 something computer user/programmer/admin/whatever that has been using and coding computers since I was 12 years old, the days when I had to make my own video games because I was an early adopter and nothing was available to us. Didn't stop me from getting what I want. And guess what? That's the way of the world, this is how customers work - they want something? You have it? You can sell it! But trying to shove stuff down their throats doesn't really work well in the long run. History repeats itself.
I've been using Windows alongside Linux since 1998 (before that, it was all about Commodore 64, Amiga / Atari etc. for me). I basically went over to Linux back then in order to rid myself of proprietary stuff and take back the control of my computer - make it do what I WANT to do. Of course, in those days that was simply too much for the Joneses and they would prefer the mainstream instead of messing around under the hood just to get basic stuff up and running - and guess what - we...the Linux users NEVER blamed them for that. In fact, I understand this perfectly, heck...that was partially the Mac's big success - you could just plug it in and no messing around with stupid drivers and whatnot. Normal people just want to use their computers.
But something happened - Google started to support Android bigtime, and Android is essentially Linux under the hood - and then Hardware support EXPLODED. before we knew it - we saw companies like Ubuntu and many others fight like mad against Windows (or rather, run their own course as a decent competitor regardless of losses and support), because they knew - eventually - they'll catch up. And we did - together!
I use Mint Linux today - when I discovered this combo (Ubuntu + Cinnamon) I could basically say goodbye to my Windows partition for good. It was just an annoying liability of worms, constant numerous battles with worms, updates, turning of disk trashing...oh sorry...caching / optimizing or whatever they call necessary to optimize that slow running disk trashing system that took forever to boot each time I wanted to run something that demanded Windows only. It was getting further and further away from me, I had hardly touched Windows for ages.
AND HERE...is where things get fun...
I decided that I needed a new computer, so I went and bought the most BLEEDING edge hardware I could get my hands on, in my big ego...(basically only running Linux) I had totally forgotten that there was an operating system called windows (and curiously so had the people at the computer store, they themselves ran Linux mainly at home
When I assembled the entire computer at home - latest bleeding specs - latest Mint Linux - it all installed in less than 15 minutes WITH EVERYTHING I NEEDED (try that with windows unless you have a Ghosted Image with the EXACT specs of that computer), and it boots in between 3 and 6 seconds from start to finish! And this is just with a STOCK EVO 850 Samsung SSD HD.
Try to imagine the speed if they had the PCI SSD In stock....(gonna get that one!).
And every part of the hardware was supported - straight away - not only that, my setup surpassed EVERY RENDERING TEST done with BLENDER open source 3D software CYCLES (software rendering, not Nvidia GPU) done on tested Windows machines with exactly the same specs as mine.
Bye Windows, may you rest in peace.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
As often as Microsoft screws up regular updates, why in hell would we trust them to update something that can brick our computers when it fails?
Fuck. That.
"I believe Microsoft is perfectly entitled to drop support for newer processors in old versions of Windows."
Even more: that's not dropping support. "Dropping" implies something was supported and it is supported no more. If doing something, like being able to boot up on processor X, was never in the feature list, you are not "dropping" anything by still being unable to boot up on processor X.
A different issue, and one that, given Microsoft history, wouldn't surprise me, would be if Microsoft were to go out of their way to add an "update" to test for the new processor and refuse to boot on that.
Most people don't actually use any applications other than the browser these days, chromeos is actually an ideal choice for a significant proportion of users.
There's also a lot of people who regularly use the internet but have never heard of windows, fixed lines are rare in a lot of developing countries so most users are on mobile and are generally using android devices.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Sign of the times. Back in the day at least they gave us a blue screen, now we're stuck with black ...
Or like Neil Young put it ...
Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.
I'm of the opinion that Microsoft sees this as their main chance, with the near term arrival of "instant suspend / resume" in the laptop form factor, because otherwise, who the hell cares about the 3% annual performance increment that Intel presently eeks out year over year?
TrendForce Reports Intel's 3D XPoint to Shake High-End SSD Market in 3Q16
It's sort of well known that Kaby / Cannon with have some interesting new shit.
Filesystem check? are you still running ext2?
No, not necessarily. The problem isn't so much the cpu cores, those will be mostly backwards-compatible. The real problem are all the other discrete PCI devices. If Microsoft does not provide updated drivers for their older OS releases, those older releases have no chance of working on newer hardware.
For example, Intel's Skylake chipset has I219 gigabit ethernet now (uprev from I218 which itself was an uprev from I217). The chance of older ethernet drivers working with newer chips is zero. In the case of the I219, the flash mapping and access mechanics changed drastically.
The integrated GPU is another good example. Skylake is up to Gen9. The chances that Gen8 code will work with it are zero.
One can go down the list. The only chipsets which are generic enough for older drivers to work are going to be the USB and AHCI chipsets. Everything else? Forget it.
But I don't know why people are complaining so much. The same can be said for BSD and Linux distros. An older BSD or Linux release is not going to work on newer systems. Most people don't care since they just update to the latest. While it is possible to backport the drivers to older OS releases, not very many people have the skill required so for all intents and purposes you need to run newer OpenSource OS's on these newer chips too.
-Matt
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Basically this sort of thing is forcing me to choose Linux as my next OS. Because Windows simply cannot and will not be a stable platform.
Here's hoping pretty much ALL hardware vendors adopt DualBIOS setups. Otherwise Microsoft is going to be killing devices left and right.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
But I don't know why people are complaining so much. The same can be said for BSD and Linux distros. An older BSD or Linux release is not going to work on newer systems
Mainly because people don't like Windows 10. If the new Windows were so great that people wanted to upgrade, then no one would complain (think of Vista -> 7, no one complained about that one). The only reason people are complaining is because they don't want to upgrade, and are sad because they are forced to. Upgrade here, sad people.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I thought to myself... how can Microsoft force this? All of their corporate customers have volume licenses with downgrade rights. Intel and AMD can still release drivers for Windows 7 if they wanted to. Then it occurred to me... driver signing.
Microsoft has seriously shaken up how driver signing works starting with Windows 10. The only way to sign any new driver in a way that Windows 10 will accept is to upload it to Microsoft over the web and have them cross-sign it along with your original signature. It used to be that as long as you had a certificate which came from a root CA that was cross-signed by Microsoft then you could sign it yourself and Windows would accept it as valid.
Now Windows 10 checks the time stamp on the driver and if the time stamp is earlier than July 29th, 20015 (the date Windows 10 was released) then Windows 10 will accept the old cross-signed root CA. If its after that date then only drivers that are directly signed my Microsoft are accepted as valid by the OS.
So how does this affect Windows 7? Well believe it or not, Windows 7 will accept certificates with either SHA1 or SHA2 (aka SHA256) for USER MODE signature check (aka .exe and .dll files.) For kernel mode drivers, Windows 7 will only accept SHA1 certificates! So all it takes is for Microsoft to stop providing SHA1 hashes via their driver signing website and then you instantly lock out any new kernel mode binary from being able to load on both Windows 7 and Windows 10. That doesn't prevent someone that still has an old SHA1 code signing certificate from using it to sign Windows 7 only drivers. But most of those certificates are expiring in the next year or two, if they haven't expired already. Intel/AMD/etc could probably release drivers for maybe 1 more silicon generation before their old certificates expire and they lose the ability to release Windows 7 drivers without submitting them to Microsoft for approval.
Basically Microsoft is using code signing to create planned obsolescence for Windows 7.
What you’re describing is doing an upgrade, which is something that people are trying to avoid. That being said, Windows 10 is spyware, which is why people are so keen on avoiding it. However, I’ve had my fair share of Ubuntu upgrades go horribly wrong, so Linux upgrades aren’t exactly rainbows and unicorns.