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New Intel and AMD Chips Will Only Support Windows 10 (pcworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Buried in the announcement of the new Kaby Lake (seventh-generation) processors and a rash of incoming notebooks set to use them is the confirmation that they will have a Windows 10 future. Microsoft has been warning people for ages that Kaby Lake will not run on anything older than Windows 10, and it looks like AMD's upcoming Zen chip will be going the same way. Microsoft said, "As new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon." "We are committed to working with Microsoft and our ecosystem partners to help ensure a smooth transition given these changes to Microsoft's Windows support policy," an Intel spokesperson said. "No, Intel will not be updating Win 7/8 drivers for 7th Gen Intel Core [Kaby Lake] per Microsoft's support policy change." An AMD representative was equally neutral. "AMD's processor roadmap is fully aligned with Microsoft's software strategy," AMD chief technical officer Mark Papermaster said, via a company spokeswoman. Slashdot reader MojoKid via HotHardware has some more details on Intel's Kaby Lake 7th Gen Core Series Processors for those yearning to learn more.
It will be illegal to run any other version than Windows 10.
It doesn't matter. I would imagine 95% of all Windows licenses are sold with hardware, anyway. We are going to keep buying refurb machines with Windows 7 licenses, because that's the OS we need. The hardware really hasn't mattered for workstations for a decade or so, anyway.
I don't respond to AC's.
Wow, Microsoft must be paying a fuckton of money to AMD. Windows 7 is still 47% (down only about 5% from Q1 2016 and probably not moving any farther now that free upgrades are over). If my competitor stood up and said "we are walking away from half of the market" my response would be "We are committed to supporting the half of the market our competitor just abandoned."
Is AMD independently wealthy enough to also ignore half of the market, or is Microsoft making them wealthy enough to do so? Stockholders ought to be asking that question right now, especially given the weak position that AMD is in.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
What about Linux? Microsoft's Kaby Lake support or lack of it appears to be based on detecting the processor version, and not any lack of backward compatibility in the chip architecture.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
To give you some perspective. I use Win7 as my home/gaming OS and Linux as my work/dev OS. I went to Win10, tried it for a month, grew to hate it. Went back to Win7 to wait for Win10 to improve in a few more years. But if MS doesn't want to give me the option to avoid Win10 then I'll just start finding a way to work Linux into being my full time OS.
Intel already tried to break the Windows 10 installer with their latest chipsets.
They forced the USB controller into XHCI mode for no reason, so when you get to the point in the Windows 7 installer where you need to interact with it, you're fucked if you're using USB installation media or a USB keyboard. Using an optical drive and an unattended setup answers file or an optical drive and a PS/2 keyboard works. Guess which things modern Intel platforms tend not to have.
Of course, the Taiwanese mobo manufacturers all released the workarounds (use a DVD and a PS/2 keyboard, use USB ports 7 and 8 which are powered by the non-Intel controller, etc.) and even published tools to patch the Windows 7 installer to just make it work. Intel and MS responded after much outcry by releasing official versions of those same tools.
Fuck both Intel and MS. If AMD goes the same way, fuck them too. Windows 10 is the worst thing to happen in computing this decade.