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User-Made Patch Lets Owners of Next-Gen CPUs Install Updates On Windows 7 & 8.1 (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: GitHub user Zeffy has created a patch that removes a limitation that Microsoft imposed on users of 7th generation processors, a limit that prevents users from receiving Windows updates if they still use Windows 7 and 8.1. This limitation was delivered through Windows Update KB4012218 (March 2017 Patch Tuesday) and has made many owners of Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge CPUs very angry last week, as they weren't able to install any Windows updates. Microsoft's move was controversial, but the company did its due diligence, and warned customers of its intention since January 2016, giving users enough time to update to Windows 10, move to a new OS, or downgrade their CPU, if they needed to remain on Windows 7 or 8.1 for various reasons. When the April 2017 Patch Tuesday came around last week, GitHub user Zeffy finally had the chance to test four batch scripts he created in March, after the release of KB4012218. His scripts worked as intended by patching Windows DLL files, skipping the CPU version check, and delivering updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 computers running 7th generation CPUs.
You hit an illegal instruction exception because some instruction selected by a
compiler optimization or performance library doesn't exist on your CPU.
No one's forcing you to use those things. And you're free to complain loudly to those other vendors too. If everyone refused to buy from those vendors until they supported another OS they liked better, then those vendors would make software versions for OSes other than Windows. So, in short, you (plural, meaning all of you who buy from those vendors) have done this to yourselves. I have no sympathy.
Microsoft has deprecated old versions of Windows on this hardware for a reason. There have been a lot of advances in hardware technology since Windows 7 came out, and trying to run an OS on hardware it was not originally designed or optimized to run on will just lead to instability. Windows 7 mainstream support already ended in 2015, which means that Microsoft has the right to not add new features to the OS. Support for newer hardware is just one of those features. A game of cat and mouse will ensue, but eventually the developer will tire of it, and Microsoft will win the fight. If you don't want to use Windows 10, there are always alternatives.