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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.
let me install a random patch from some dude named "zeffy"
I thought MS caved and said they wouldn't support new CPU features on old OSes?
Taking bets; M$ will release a 'patch' that has one intent: to deliberately break this 'fix'; so M$ can say "told you it wouldn't work". The bigger problem is: We won't know which "patch" M$ will 'break' to induce this problem.
BTW: It is no big effort for M$ to continue to test this as almost all testing by M$ is automated. There is an alter-motive behind this. Which I knew what it was.
This is probably doing the opposite of what you're thinking--letting older software run on newer CPUs.
> How long until they do something to break this?
Don't worry, it's rando github scripts all the way down.
My Guess is they don't want to validate the updates for the older OS on newer CPU hardware. At least that would be the 'engineering' reason....
love is just extroverted narcissism
..no, they just want to put a gun to everyone's heads and force them to use Windows 10. Really, they do.
Meanwhile a few of us will continue babying along Windows XP until we can get Linux running. Microsoft can go pound sand, I'm not playing anymore.
If this was anyone but Microsoft, that may well be right.
But this IS Microsoft, and they have been doing their absolute damnedest to shove Win10 down everyone's throat in every conceivable way possible.
Further, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from releasing any necessary updates to support the newest processors, assuming updates are even necessary. They've done this plenty of times in the past. Windows XP was supported for, what? 15 years? No CPU problems there. Windows 7 has been around for 8 years, and up till now there hasn't been any issues with processor updates. There have been a whole lot of new CPUs released over the past 20 years, and yet suddenly NOW it's a problem? I don't think so.
I don't understand how this is isn't class-action suit worthy. Microsoft has explicitly declared that they refuse to honour the contract that they would support Windows 7 until 2020.
After using Windows since 3.1 I can't stand it anymore and I think Apple is just as bad. My move to Linux has already started and I have to say it's really easy. Still playing around with Ubuntu and Mint but I either one seems fine for now.
That is pretty much exactly it. Intel agreed to foot the bill for the 6th Gen Core series, so those are supported, but the rest aren't. Presumably AMD could make a similar deal.
Considering Windows 7 has been on extended support for some time now, and is scheduled only to get security updates, people don't have much of a leg to stand on getting upset. Not that it will stop plenty of people who think Microsoft should support their favorite version of Windows until the end of time -- or at least until they decide to move on -- free of charge naturally. It also won't stop them from coming up with all manner of creative conspiracy theories for why Microsoft won't support their favorite Windows version indefinitely, all of which will ignore basic economics.
Windows 8.1, however, is another story, since it's still within that first support period where Microsoft will potentially add new features, so it's a bit of a dick move there, but I guess they figured the user base on 8.1 is so small the money saved on validation efforts is worth the PR hit.
Yeah, hardware compatibility is the problem. Not forcing people to upgrade - any which way they can. Funny how those newfangled CPU thingies can still run MS-DOS though.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
My Win 7 box will run until no more security updates come in 2020.
By then you should be pretty good at reinstalling your system from a clean image and having your data backed up, for that odd time when your box DOES get pwned. Which you really have to try hard to do nowadays - gone are the days of some random worm taking over your box just because you hooked it up to the internet.
And besides, hopefully Flash will be totally dead by 2020 and a major security threat will be gone.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It is so ridiculous. We have this overly complex and backward compatible x86 ISA that still runs all 8086 (https://t2-project.org/architectures/x86/) real mode crap, probably DOS 1.0 and Windows 1, and M$ artificially limits booting based on a switch(cupid) or so, ...
What a stupid world.
Most Windows Updates involve rarely utilized components that are exploitable only if not protected through other measures (specifically firewalls). I haven't seen anything come down the pipe that increased performance.
I hope to not require Windows in the future but Windows Update is disabled on my Win7 machine and everything's in its right place.
Exactly right. If you don't like the way your OS vendor treats you, then stop bitching and whining about it and find a vendor that gives you the service you want.
Thanks for thinking of people who won't run Windows > 7, but no thanks. I've got enough machine to run the Windows software I've got now, and except for very cheap games (of the sort which have already been released now, or older) I'm unlikely to ever give a crap again.
The next machine I build with a more advanced architecture than this FX-8350 will just have to run Linux.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No one expects MS to provide support for new processor or platform features.
We do expect the exact same files for OS security patches to be made available to all since the files don't care what the underlying processor is.
In the very rare case that some bug pops up on new processors but not old processors, then it's errata time, along with a BIOS/UEFI/microcode patch to fix it without Windows even knowing about it.
Supporting a backwards-compatible architecture requires no work so it is not a new feature. No one is asking Microsoft to take advantage of Kaby Lake's new video decoding hardware in Windows 7.
Tiny flaw with that argument: While they were at it, they also deliberately crippled WU on Win8.1. That's still in Mainstream support until 2018.
They're in the business of making OS, it's kind of expected for them to make it work on any hardware. Linux and BSD maintainers have to do the same work as do some other proprietary OS and manage to support various architectures that are several decades old.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Sorry duder. You got my name wrong and you're accusing the wrong person. I'm not the apps!/ LUDDITE guy (though I do respect his work).
In fact, I don't post as AC to troll/spam at all. I've also been falsely accused of being the moo! guy because I posted it on some stories that hadn't been hit by it yet, and people assumed I was the original troll and had forgotten to post as AC. Nope.
In closing: Happy Tuesday from the Golden Girls!
> Why are they scumbags?
Like, philosophically? I guess because if there aren't vile antagonists, humans would have little to strive against.
Do you mean, practically? Presumably because they think it lines up with their business model, and they have no intention of serving their paying customers if they can get away with not doing that thing.
Or do you mean, why does THIS particular thing exemplify their scumbaggery? Well, that should be obvious: if you have a Windows 7 license, nothing on that box states or implies that the software will be broken by design on Intel chips past a certain date, for no reason except to invalidate the value of your purchase.
> Are you going to pay them extra to keep supporting Win7 on new hardware like that?
If you bought a Windows license, you already did. Nothing about it says "works with these exact chips: beyond that, we can guarantee nothing".
Much more relevantly, testing security and even functional patches on chips which jump through every hoop in the universe to be backwards binary compatible with THE NINETEEN EIGHTIES is no great effort. Not supporting OLD hardware is reasonable for OSes, assuming they don't screw over too many people. Not supporting NEW chips which are backwards compatible is UNPRECEDENTED in the industry. It's just a stupid cash grab to try to force everyone onto that supernaturally awful Windows 10.
Yeah, hardware compatibility is the problem.
This has already been explained many times over, it really isn't that hard to understand:
Windows 7 was designed nearly 10 years ago before any x86/x64 SOCs existed. For Windows 7 to run on any modern silicon, device drivers and firmware need to emulate Windows 7’s expectations for interrupt processing, bus support, and power states- which is challenging for WiFi, graphics, security, and more. As partners make customizations to legacy device drivers, services, and firmware settings, customers are likely to see regressions with Windows 7 ongoing servicing.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/#ZYl785vt4CGCYgvH.97
What about that do you find so difficult to understand? Linux had similar problems with running on Skylake and newer processors on kernels earlier than around 4.2, and even 4.2 through 4.5 had many issues around power management and graphics functionality not working properly. You need to update your Linux kernel to be able to run these newer processors too. Or did the Linux kernel people intentionally put those problems in there to force people to upgrade their kernel too?
Funny how those newfangled CPU thingies can still run MS-DOS though.
Not really, MS-DOS is a *very* simple operating system that only requires the most basic of functionality.
..no, they just want to put a gun to everyone's heads and force them to use Windows 10. Really, they do.
Oh don't be so melodramatic.. We've had viable alternatives in macOS and Linux (which of course you also need to run newer versions of if you want to run these newer processor architectures) for many many years now and if you're only just realizing "oh maybe Microsoft doesn't have my best interests in mind" then that's your own fault. Even if you really really need to run that program and it's Windows only? Run it in a sanitized VM, again a solved problem for many many years.
Linux and Mac are only viable if:
- You can stand their interfaces. Linux is configurable enough that its probably OK but macOS is a bloody nightmare to use when you're used to Windows.
- You can configure it. Applies mostly to Linux in order to deal with #1 since Apple's UI design motto is basically "do it our way or fuck you." This is not really an easy chore and requires some fairly strong computer skills if you want anything beyond the defaults.
- You don't require any software that runs only on Windows. Yeah VMs work but they start getting into the previous point of requiring computer skills. Plus they're typically a pain in the ass and always at least a little bit slower compared to running applications natively. Never mind if you're into games that don't have Mac ports (and Linux gaming is still barely worth talking about..)
- And even if you set up the VM, all you've done is push the problem from the hardware to the virtual hardware -- you're still running Windows on that VM and unless you're running a clean image every time you start the VM, you've got all of the same problems (and of course doing the clean image plan has its own massive problems in terms of convenience.)
- And then forgetting all of that, you have to rely on your replacement OS to not be just as bad. Looking at macOS in particular for this point. Apple may be crusading to avoid having to give your data to the government, but they sure as hell aren't taking the "just don't collect it in the first place" route.
Linux and Mac are only viable if:
- You can stand their interfaces. Linux is configurable enough that its probably OK but macOS is a bloody nightmare to use when you're used to Windows.
- You can configure it. Applies mostly to Linux in order to deal with #1 since Apple's UI design motto is basically "do it our way or fuck you." This is not really an easy chore and requires some fairly strong computer skills if you want anything beyond the defaults.
If you'd rather suffer lack of security updates because you can't cope with any non-Windows GUI then - aside from being a pretty lame attempt at an excuse - you're only stuck because you choose to be.
- You don't require any software that runs only on Windows. Yeah VMs work but they start getting into the previous point of requiring computer skills. Plus they're typically a pain in the ass and always at least a little bit slower compared to running applications natively.
They're typically not a pain in the ass, in fact they're typically VERY VERY easy and with modern virtualization they tend to offer near-native performance, but most people that have some program that only runs on Windows can cope with a minor performance hit as a tradeoff to running Windows 10 natively wrt privacy. So what specifically do you find so difficult about VMs?
Never mind if you're into games that don't have Mac ports (and Linux gaming is still barely worth talking about..)
If you really need those games then dual boot into Windows 10 just for games and nothing else.
- And even if you set up the VM, all you've done is push the problem from the hardware to the virtual hardware -- you're still running Windows on that VM and unless you're running a clean image every time you start the VM, you've got all of the same problems (and of course doing the clean image plan has its own massive problems in terms of convenience.)
What specific problem are you talking about that has been "pushed"? I specifically said a "sanitized VM" give it only access to things it absolutely needs and only do the things you absolutely need Windows for, that eliminates almost all of the issues.
- And then forgetting all of that, you have to rely on your replacement OS to not be just as bad.
Yes you do seem to be making every effort to come up with excuses as to why it's all just completely hopeless and everybody should just do what Microsoft says and dutifully upgrade to Windows 10. I'm providing solutions, you're making excuses, if you want to just knuckle under and do whatever Microsoft tells you then go ahead. I'm not trying to stop you, my advice is predicated on a willingness to go to even the slightest effort to mitigate some of the bad things in Windows.
If you'd rather suffer lack of security updates because you can't cope with any non-Windows GUI then - aside from being a pretty lame attempt at an excuse - you're only stuck because you choose to be.
Yes. New interfaces can be learned. Its just a pain in the ass and requires a hell of a lot of time, patience and retraining. I've run on Linux before. It was alright, but I do too much non-Linux stuff to make it worth the effort. MacOS kills me though.
They're typically not a pain in the ass ... So what specifically do you find so difficult about VMs?
Having to start them up every time you want to do something is a pain in the ass. Think "annoying" more than "difficult." Well, unless you need to do something non-standard and then they can be difficult depending on what you need to do.
If you really need those games then dual boot into Windows 10 just for games and nothing else.
Again, a right pain in the ass. And assumes you know how to setup a dual boot system (I personally do, but there's a vast majority of the population who wouldn't even know what the term means never mind how to make it happen.)
What specific problem are you talking about that has been "pushed"?
The fact that you're running Windows. Windows is still Windows, even in a VM, and has all of the same issues that Windows on hardware has.
I specifically said a "sanitized VM" give it only access to things it absolutely needs and only do the things you absolutely need Windows for, that eliminates almost all of the issues.
Except all of the other issues I've mentioned about this being annoying as fuck to deal with and not exactly easy for a layperson to setup in the first place.
all just completely hopeless and everybody should just do what Microsoft says
No.. I'm just saying that there are costs to the alternatives as well. Its not just "MS evil everyone else good!" Apple in particular I don't trust any more than I trust Microsoft -- even ignoring the other issues like their horrid UI. Hell even with Linux you have to know and trust your distro a good amount before you can claim with any conviction that they aren't also doing similar things.
I'm providing solutions, you're making excuses
You've only provided one solution -- "just use something else" without any regard to the potential downsides of switching. I have no problem with people switching away from Windows (well, to Linux at least) but I do have a problem if they decide to switch without considering both the positive AND negative consequences.
my advice is predicated on a willingness to go to even the slightest effort to mitigate some of the bad things in Windows.
No, your advice is predicated on a blind hatred for MS without regard to the fact that the alternatives also have negatives and almost all companies are going to screw you if you let them, not just MS.
I'm not doing this unless it can screw up my windows 7 installs with the same Microsoft quality updates that bitch up my Windows 10 installs.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
At this point it's still less work to run one of those "Windows 10 fixer" apps to disable/block the advertising and malware then it is to switch over to Linux.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"They're in the business of making OS, it's kind of expected for them to make it work on any hardware."
you say this as though it's a fundamental property of an operating system. really, it's pretty damned unusual for a commercial OS to run on "any hardware" (even when you interpret that in the limited sense you're using it), and it's an expectation that Microsoft mostly established in the first place. this was not altruism, of course; it was a business decision to take over the PC market. since that's now basically impossible, at least for now, they are taking a different strategy. they're in the business of making an OS, so they're going to take the efforts which they think will maximize return. unsurprisingly, this does not include supporting their cost center legacy OS.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
What specific problem are you talking about that has been "pushed"?
The fact that you're running Windows. Windows is still Windows, even in a VM, and has all of the same issues that Windows on hardware has.
Why do you consider running Windows to be a problem? ... mitigates (in a very big way) the privacy concerns around it.
Isolating it in a VM away from things like your personal data, browsing information, etc
Except all of the other issues I've mentioned about this being annoying as fuck to deal with and not exactly easy for a layperson to setup in the first place.
If it's too hard for you then don't do it, again if you're not willing to resolve the problem then you can opt to just live with the problem. Or maybe you don't consider it a problem to begin with in which case this is all irrelevant to you anyway. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?
No.. I'm just saying that there are costs to the alternatives as well.
Oh really? Solving a problem requires actually doing something? Who would have guessed?!
Its not just "MS evil everyone else good!"
I never said or implied that at all, you're just making things up.
You've only provided one solution -- "just use something else" without any regard to the potential downsides of switching.
Actually I provided multiple options:
>Run an alternative operating system exclusively.
>Run an alternative operating system with Windows in a VM for Windows-specific things.
>Run an alternative operating system with Windows as a dual-boot option for use cases where a VM is insufficient.
And these are only solutions if you consider these other 2 options of running Windows 10 exclusively to be a problem or if you consider running older versions of Windows on newer hardware such that you don't get security updates to be a problem.
Hell even with Linux you have to know and trust your distro a good amount before you can claim with any conviction that they aren't also doing similar things.
No actually I can see what network traffic it is sending and it obeys the HOSTS file, from my router I can see that Windows 10 doesn't obey the hosts file and sends encrypted packets out to Microsoft servers. So yes I can pretty easily see that my Linux distro isn't sending off data to other people. Is telemetry data a concern for me? Not really, but if it is for you then you probably want to limit your use of Windows (possibly macOS too but you can opt out of telemetry on macOS).
No, your advice is predicated on a blind hatred for MS without regard to the fact that the alternatives also have negatives and almost all companies are going to screw you if you let them, not just MS.
What "blind hatred of MS" are you talking about? Could you cite what exactly you think implies that? It seems you are confused.
What problem do you think I'm providing solutions for? And what is your proposed solution to the problem?
Though they weren't really relevant to PCs or Windows, the Coldfire chips are a good example of this kind of design change. Though they were marketed as having a m68k heritage, they basically took away most of the instructions and addressing modes that made the original 680x0 so incredibly convenient to program in assembly language.
RISC processors were developed to be efficient and cheap. The m68k was developed to be convenient for assembly-language programmers. The 680x0 family indulged programmers in ways that would be almost *inconceivable* today (it even had a instructions for manipulating binary-coded decimal... they weren't terribly useful on computers like an Amiga, ST, or Mac, but apparently were a Very Big Deal(tm) back when programmers had to routinely deal with legacy BCD-encoded data from mainframes. Being able to directly manipulate BCD values meant not having to go through the trouble of converting them to and from 8/16/32-bit values first.
Examples of things Coldfire took away:
* the "decrement and branch conditionally" instructions. Sure, behind the scenes, they were basically two simpler instructions automatically glued together and executed back to back from a single opcode... but damn, they were nice to have.
* most of the immediate addressing modes not involving a register as the source or destination. On a 680x0, you could stuff a specific byte value into an arbitrary memory location by doing something like, "MOVE.B #$69, $dff000" (storing hex 0x69 in address 0xdff000 in a single gulp). On a Coldfire, you have to load-then-store (load $69 into a data register, then store that register's value at the desired target address).
* and of course, all the BCD-related instructions (ok, losing THEM didn't really bother me much, as you probably guessed... but I probably would have loved them if I'd been born about 10 years earlier).
^5
Intel x86 and derivatives still have instructions for BCD manipulation. Never used them, myself, so I don't know how they compare to what m68k had.
I prefer OSX look and feel to Windows 7 and 8. Simple, minimalistic, no ribbons, no gloss, no extra junk to get in your way.
Well any decent company would support past customers just for the sake of keeping customers. Whether it's a new feature or not it make sense to support it.
You say this, but let's share your credentials for kernel development.
And what's wrong the customers with that viewpoint? Why should a company treat past loyal customers like scum just because they like an older version? Even if it's a pain in the ass to maintain, it's a huge PR hit to dismiss most of your installed base that way. There's a big shift away from their core loyal base of office workers towards home users who were already migrating away from PCs. If they want customers to upgrade then they should make upgrading attractive to the customers, rather than a ho-hum release with no value to most customers that's coupled with a heavy adware campaign and dirty tricks.
Seriously, there is no reason to upgrade if Windows 7 is working and supported because upgrading provides little value, and what value it has is easily offset by the drawbacks. So their marketing response is not to improve the product but rather to browbeat the users and degrade the older versions. Any other company would fade to obscurity with tricks like that, and since Microsoft is rapidly losing its monopoly it's a rather bad business move to treat customers that way.
The only thing MacOS is missing out of the box is window snapping, but there are ways to fix that....
(I'm wondering off topic a bit, but...)
1. focus follows mouse and window menu bars within the window (need the latter for the former to work).
2. legal/supported hackintosh.
If Apple had made their OS generally available in the same way Windows is, and I could do focus follows mouse, I would have had it running on at least one of my machines, and I suspect that would have grown into most of them.
For those coming from Windows, and buying new hardware, it really shouldn't be a big deal. Sure, everything underneath is different, as is the way everything looks, but it all ends up working pretty much the same. The change isn't significantly more drastic than going from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
Sort of. Newer processors can also eliminate or replace instructions,
They Don't, Period. Intel goes through great lengths to make sure every later generation of X86 is fully backwards compatible with all the previous generations, all the way back to 80386.
Linux had similar problems with running on Skylake and newer processors on kernels earlier than around [....]
Windows 7 and 8 have been running FINE (or reasonably well) on these Newer processors for over a Year; these operating systems are BARELY serviced anymore at all, Only occasional Defect updates come out for the latest bug in Internet Explorer, Flash, etc.
Even though Windows 8 is still under its promised MAINSTREAM support period which includes New hardware enablement, they're getting cut off for new security patches too.
The security updates Are not CPU-related. They work fine except for the arbitrary forced update disablement. MS is going out of their way to maliciously attack people who run Windows 7 and Windows 8 on newer hardware, that probably means they downgraded their OS and are running Windows 7 and 8 just fine, Because the old OSes will run on new CPUs just fine, and power management differences are not all that significant (And can be disabled, anyways).
It wasn't intended to make it believable or to silence disagreement. Writing "Period" means the same as "the end" as in there's nothing more to it than the sentence that preceded it. That is "Intel goes to great lengths,... Period" Not "when they feel like it", not "when they aren't doing something dodgy", not "when management tells them to" just period.
Do you even English man?
I don't know of any recent Intel cases
Implying you know of any cases? No really please name an x86 instruction (that was official and documented when the processor was released) that has been removed.
and find a vendor that gives you the service you want.
The vendors with the right service have the wrong product and the vendors with the right product have the wrong service.
No one expects MS to provide support for new processor or platform features.
I expect support for new processors. I don't expect support or even use of platform features, but I damn well expect support for processors.
Windows 7 and 8.1 are designed for x86. I expect Microsoft to provide support for their versions regardless on which x86 processor I attempt to run it on for the duration of their support agreements. I'm not even talking extended support. Windows 8.1 is in the ____(1) mainstream support period and they are refusing to support it even though you are running it on a current x86 compatible processor which has all the instructions required to run the OS.
(1) insert expletive of choice here.
They also never advertised that it would work on all future computer hardware.
But it does work on future hardware. This is the bit where your analogy fails miserably. The newer processors are 100% platform compatible with their predecessors. There is no reason why the new processors should not be supported especially given that one of the OSes in question is still in the middle of it's mainstream support period.
So to summarise:
1. You have a current OS designed for x86 hardware in its mainstream support period.
2. You have a current CPU with an x86 instruction set with feature complete backwards compatibility.
3. You have the OS vendor choosing to arbitrarily voiding their support agreement because you are running current compatible hardware during the support period.
Why should they lift a finger to support an old, obsolete OS that they don't want people to keep using?
There's this thing call support agreements. Fucking Windows 8.1 old and obsolete? Get the fuck of Slashdot.
Well, Micro$oft uses such nasty way to force us to upgrade to Windows 10, I think it is the high time to get rid of M$ Windows, and Linux is a good alternative.
I think that it has more with Microsoft wanting to avoid a repeat of the Windows XP support debacle, where people were installing fresh copies of it just a few months before it was about to go End Of Life.
These people then started screaming that couldn't get security patches for their 13 year old operating system, even though they probably shouldn't have installed it that new PC to begin with.
Even now, there are still a ton of unpatched Windows XP systems out in the field running as information kiosk systems and POS terminals. That's not good for anyone, because they're just waiting for someone to turn them into a botnet the first some some dumb IT guy accidently connects to them to the Internet.
It's not just processors but chipsets. You can't expect support for new SATA, USB, thunderbolt and other types of controllers. You can't expect new wifi drivers or support for the latest GPU. That's just not reasonable.
I think it's a dick move for microsoft to put in this patch, but from there perspective a user running an old windows version where it runs poorly, overheats or just has a bad experience will blame them for that too. It kind of makes sense from that perspective.
You guys are looking at this as end users of windows. Most of Microsoft's customers are actually OEMs who want to sell new PCs.
Further, looking at it as an OS vendor, I completely understand why they don't want to support old versions. It is a lot of work.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
There's no legitimate disagreeing viewpoint; It is a fact that Kaby Lake is backwards compatible all the way back to Nehalem with no dropped instructions, and no instructions modified in a way that introduces compatibility issues; they Kaby Lake processors are not "Designed for Windows 10" as MS would imply, And in fact, the differences between the 7th generation and 6th generation CPUs that are still supported are so miniscule as to be dismissed as mere footnotes, or
minor tweaks, which have no affect on application compatibility....
If you don't want to use Windows 10, there are always alternatives.
Yes. The best being Windows 7. The second best being Windows XP if your motherboard and other hardware has drivers for it. If you meant Linux well surely you were already dual booting that. The only point of running Windows is for software that does not have a viable Linux equivalent and there are lots unfortunately.
Microsoft has been evil and inept for a long time, but they are reaching new levels of both pure evil and ineptitude with Windows 10. I won't downgrade to that piece of shit while I am still breathing. It is unfortunate that Microsoft wants to penalize me for using their own software just because it isn't their newest and shiniest version. Well it would be their newest and shiniest version if they weren't such stupid incompetent and evil fuckwits who make their software worse with every version instead of better. I am hoping that sanity will eventually prevail over there at Retard Central and eventually a XP or Windows 7 equivalent will be released at some point, but I fear that this may be the time when those cunts never return from their journey into Retardoland. A massive software company entirely run by and for sociopaths with Downs syndrome. Fuck you Microsoft. I will wait for some version of Windows that at least tries to serve the needs of the user rather than be some uber-cynical money grab.
Really the lack of updates isn't a major problem anyway. You should really be doing whatever you can with Linux or OS X if you care so much about security. For software you need to run that is Windows only just keep using 7 (or 8 I guess) until defeated by a lack of drivers. Drivers, particularly motherboard chipset drivers, are the real problem and Microsoft has colluded with Intel and possibly even AMD to try to prevent hardware manufacturers from writing drivers that support Windows 7. This is despite the fact that Windows 7 support does not end until 2020 three long years from now. So there is no excuse except that Microsoft thinks they will make more money this way.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I read this last night, was hoping to come back to some more nonsense, but i think he realized that he was just talking in circles about his laziness and lack of aspiration. You made a bunch of very good points about alternatives i hope some people take it to heed.
Maybe; maybe not - I'm not disagreeing - simply expressing that I am not inclined to check for myself.
Use of the word 'Period' to indicate that the writer is interested in finalising the discussion after having made their point does little to persuade the reader, regardless of the truth of any assertion.
It seems to me that a writer confident in their assertion would not seek additional pseudo-confirmation.
Requiem for the American Dream
Microsoft's job is to make money for their shareholders, and that's it, not to make people happy
No it is not. Their job has nothing to do with their shareholders. Their shareholders can go fuck themselves. They don't matter. Their actual job is to deliver a quality product that gets better with each release instead of worse and which is beneficial to their customers instead of actively being harmful to them. If Microsoft did not essentially have monopoly power in their market segment they would have been out of business a long time ago. They are probably the most inept software company in the world. A company's job is in fact to make their customers happy...with their product. Microsoft is clearly not doing that. Otherwise they would not have to pull stunts like this to try to force people to use their newer and crappier versions that almost everyone hates.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Windows is only viable if:
In other words, if you can't deal with Mac OS or Linux, there is no "viable" OS anymore.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It's not just processors but chipsets. You can't expect support for new SATA, USB, thunderbolt and other types of controllers. You can't expect new wifi drivers or support for the latest GPU. That's just not reasonable.
Why isn't it reasonable? Linux can do it. There are definitely programmers out there who can right the code to support the hardware. You know who hires such people? Motherboard manufacturers like Asus, Gigabyte, AsRock, and MSI. They do it because they believe in helping people. They do it purely out of kindness...oh wait. Actually they do it because a lot of potential customers are running older and much better operating systems and don't want to have to upgrade just to buy a new motherboard. They do it because they want to make money selling their newest motherboards to people who may not otherwise buy them. It's called capitalism. It's called competition. If an Asus motherboard has drivers for Windows 7 but Gigabyte does not guess which brand I'm going to buy if I am running Windows7 and don't want to downgrade to malware which is inferior in almost every way?
Actually I am still waiting to see if Microsoft can really convince all the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers to *not* write drivers that the market clearly wants so very badly. I guess it's just a matter of money though. If Microsoft pays them enough not to write them then maybe they won't. It's just so fucked that Microsoft really is that evil. This is a form of market failure btw. This is one example of capitalism failing to efficiently allocate resources. In a free market Microsoft should have died off or gone niche a long time ago. Why are these retards even still around?
I'm generally a laissez faire kind of guy when it comes to government involvement in the market but this seems like a clear example of collusion and monopolistic abuse of power to me. I wish some government would step in and tell them they can't do this sort of thing and spank them at least a little if they continue anyway. I really think we'd all be much better off if someone just nuked the whole Redmond campus. Maybe from orbit. Just to be sure. If I were king of the planet I would just put them out of business and that would be that. Corporate Death Penalty for their crimes against humanity. Let someone competent who actually cares about the quality of their product step into the vacuum to replace them. I mean is there some absolute requirement that all large corporations must be led by sociopaths? If there is at least most aren't quite so evil or useless.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Use of the word 'Period' to indicate that the writer is interested in finalising the discussion after having made their point
Except that is not what it means. I don't know where you got that from. In fact it has nothing to do with persuasion at all. It is not an attempt at persuasion. It is not an attempt to end the discussion either. I can see how you might make that mistake if you based the meaning entirely on context, but you have been misunderstanding its meaning all these years. It's really just a form of emphasis I guess. Like a semantic form of italics. It is a way to convey meaning. Not to convince.You may not like it just as some people don't like the use of italics, but it's a perfectly valid form of communication.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Microsoft has deprecated old versions of Windows on this hardware for a reason
Yes and we all know what that reason is. No one wants to run Windows 10. Almost everyone hates it. Probably has something to do with the fact that it is very badly designed malware disguised as an OS, but who knows. For whatever reason it is the new Windows ME. The difference is this time Microsoft wants to try to force people to use it and apparently are willing to spend millions of dollars to try to make that happen. I mean fuck they can't even give it away for free. How are they ever going to get end users to pay for their steaming pile of shite? They could have tried this with ME too but I guess the management at the time were not as cynical or evil as they are now. I can't think of a company off hand with as much contempt for their own customers as Microsoft.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
At no point has Microsoft *ever* been responsible for supporting all those drivers. Ever. They may throw some base-level drivers for common well known hardware, but when something new comes out, it is the manufacturer's responsibility to put out new drivers.
This has been true for every single piece of hardware in existence, whether it's a PCI winmodem, a printer, a graphics card, or a motherboard chipset. If you've ever done a clean install of Windows, you would know that there are a cavalcade of drivers you need to install, including drivers specific to processors, and chipsets.
So this isn't the issue. The issue is that Microsoft refuses to be responsible for THEIR software, for completely nebulous reasons that have never been a problem in the past. This is nothing more than a flimsy excuse to push people to Windows 10, for the exact same reason that they tried to prove in court that IE was inseparable from the OS during their browser monopoly trial: For their own self-serving interest, nothing more, nothing less.
Yep. Apple is much worse in this respect. My 2006 Mac Pro had processing power and memory that is still on par, or better than, the current Mac mini once you upgrade the video card. But Apple stopped supporting new OS versions on it, which quickly renders the whole Apple ecosystem defunct. You can't update iTunes, so then you can't sync a new iPhone, for example. And finding compatible browsers starts to be an issue too, as new software for OSX tends to just not run on older OSes. I had to resort to end-user hacks to load the modern OS on it, but when I did, it worked very nicely.
The irony is that the most straightforward solution to the iTunes problem is to install Windows on it. Even Windows 10 is perfectly fine with the older hardware, and happily runs the newest version of iTunes.
Mac is the worst of both worlds, locked down and has a limited software library.
Perhaps you should try running OSX.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
In this case it's somewhat analogous to a thing they do in German, where words that have no literal meaning (e.g. "denn") are inserted for emphasis.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
They're in the business of making OS, it's kind of expected for them to make it work on any hardware
cf. MacOS
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Mint XFCE (or probably Xubuntu) by default ends up giving you pretty much the equivalent of the de-crapified 7-and-earlier Windows interface. It even does snap-to-edge now out of the box :)
The theming engine is split into two different pieces, somewhat oddly, but that's when you're getting into customizing it.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I bet FreeDOS and ReactOS will run just fine.
What happens when an update that works only on newer CPUs is run on a Zeffy-hacked Win 7 system?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
You can't expect support for new SATA, USB, thunderbolt and other types of controllers.
From Microsoft? I don't. I also never have. On top of that they never did. Hell before Windows 8 I hadn't even seen a version of Windows that detected my HDDs during install or booted with my display at anything other than garbage resolution followed by a warning saying it's not "optimal".
Microsoft should support their OS with security patches.
Vendors should support their hardware with drivers.
The only thing that has changed here is that Microsoft has arbitrarily decided not to provide *security patches* for versions of Windows which don't actually have a problem running on the hardware in the first place.
a user running an old windows version where it runs poorly, overheats or just has a bad experience
Pure, unsubstantiated conjecture.
Most of Microsoft's customers are actually OEMs
Actually most of Microsoft's customers are volume licencors. Some of those customers are big enough that Microsoft even provides custom builds for them. But even if they were OEMs it doesn't change the equation one bit. Why would an OEM want to arbitrarily offer less choice to potential customers in the form of system builds? The OEMs' themselves have already voiced their pissedoffness that they can no longer sell Windows 7 licenses despite customers still wanting them. OEMs have nothing to gain from this and more to lose than end users.
Further, looking at it as an OS vendor, I completely understand why they don't want to support old versions. It is a lot of work.
Then maybe they shouldn't have listed an agreed support period for their OSes that goes for 10 years.
Yes that's right, they would need to update their OS (and probably would only do the most recent one like Microsoft are doing) to take advantage of the newer processors. I'm more just suggesting there are alternatives to Windows 10 since it seems many people are averse to that operating system.
Thankyou, I'm glad there are at least some people that see there is benefit in expending the minimal effort to get what they want. Indeed many people don't see the privacy implications of Windows 10 to be an issue and that's fine but if you are opposed to Windows 10 then while it may be a little less convenient it's not all "gun to your head" hopeless, there are ways around it.
This is a stupid and idiotic post. No, their job is not to deliver a quality product; where do you get that crazy idea?
Moreover, if you really think that's their job, then obviously they're failing at it. So, what are you going to do about it? You're going to keep using their products, and sending them money, right? That means they're succeeding at their job, because they're still "working" and still getting paid. People who fail at their job get fired. If you don't get fired, you must be doing a good enough job for your employer to keep you around. So if you're failing in your job as "employer" (customer actually) to "fire" this poor performing, and actually destructive "employee", then you're the one who's really to blame for being such a terrible employer.
But anyway, you're just completely wrong about what a company's job is. It's to make money, and that's it. If you don't like the company's products, then don't buy them. That's the only power you have over them to do the job you think they should be doing, which is keeping you happy.
Wrong. Complaining is fine, but only if it's productive. If it's non-productive, then you're just an annoying whiner.
If your complaining actually serves a purpose, such as getting someone to change, or getting people to choose another vendor, then great, complain away! For instance: "I bought a Chevy car, and the ignition key turned off while I was driving down the freeway, causing me to wreck. I almost died! Here's some links showing how Chevy knew about this design flaw and covered it up to save a little money, and a bunch of people really did die as a result. Don't buy Chevies!" That's useful and productive complaining, warning people away from a dangerous product or vendor.
If your complaining just whines about the current state of affairs, but proposes no solutions and is basically tilting at windmills, and worse there are actual solutions but you refuse to pursue them, then you're just being an annoying whiner. This is generally the case with everyone who complains about Windows 10. They whine and whine and whine, but they keep using it. I'm sorry, if you're not going to do anything to change your situation, you're just like those stupid women who refuse to leave their abusive boyfriends and then even defend him, but then whine "why does he hit me? Why doesn't he love me the way I want to be loved?"
At least that has been free. Microsoft wants you to pay $150 to upgrade to their latest point-release of NT5.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
"Any hardware" - it's an x86 processor. From Windows 7's point of view it has the same feature set as any prior processor. They don't have to do ANYTHING to make it work. They actually have to do work to make Windows 7 NOT work with recent hardware.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Meh, it seems a common 'misunderstanding':
https://english.stackexchange....
Requiem for the American Dream
Linux doesn't do it. Third parties back port some things from newer kernels, but at the end of the day, old kernels like say 2.6.18 aren't getting updated with new hardware support now.
Motherboard manufacturers do not put out updated drivers. They don't make chipsets. In fact, often times they won't even tell you which realtek, broadcom or intel chip they used. Asus won't even fix secure boot on their motherboards so that you can boot an OS that isn't windows or linux with it disabled on gpt volumes for some of their boards.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Microsoft has QA'd drivers as part of the US and also as part of windows update. WHQL drivers I believe. They have to test those in several hardware configurations or have the vendors follow a process. Either way, it's a pain in the butt. Being one of the big 3 operating systems, they at least get some drivers of course.
Microsoft isn't taking windows away from anyone who is still running a beater PC from 7 years ago. You can still use your crappy windows 7 OS, just not on a modern system. I fail to see what they've taken away from you. it's not legal to transfer a license from an OEM system to another one and few people have retail copies of windows.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
OEMs love to refuse choice to their customers. Just look at how many sell systems with Linux preloaded. Look at how many will support a system running another OS.
Microsoft still supports their OS on beater hardware from 10 years ago. They won't support modern hardware that didn't even exist when they made the agreement. I fail to see the problem.
As for the hardware statement above that I made, let me give a more concrete example. Most SSDs now are at least 4k sectors. If you format your drive poorly (not 4k aligned) or you use an old OS that doesn't handle 4k alignment, it will wear out the SSD much sooner. Older versions of windows can't handle 4k drives well. Some did weird alignments when formatting. While some of this was patched in windows 7 service packs and newer OSes, it's still a problem when setting up. So if someone used stock windows 7 media or say vista and tried to install on a new SSD, it would cause physical harm to their device by wearing it out much more quickly. Should microsoft be responsible for that?
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
obviously, the money to make Windows 7 not work is less than the money they think they'll save by supporting fewer Windows 7 users.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
OEMs love to refuse choice to their customers.
Yes I'm sure refusing to sell the latest and greatest and most expensive hardware is right up there on their list.
Sorry I didn't read the rest of your post. Not after you open with such a stupid line.
Apologies for my previous post. I was actually curious at how many other brain dead stupid things you would write so I did read them. Let's go through the list:
OEMs love to refuse choice to their customers.
OEMs sell hardware that makes money. Right now they can't sell the most expensive hardware on the market to any customer with a locked in eco-system (i.e. most of the customers of Dell and HP). Your comment is stupid.
They won't support modern hardware that didn't even exist when they made the agreement.
No one is asking them to support hardware. It is their job to support software. The hardware vendors will support their hardware. Why will Windows 7 run just fine on Ryzen but you will no longer get an update to fix a security hole in Internet Explorer?
As for the hardware statement above that I made, let me give a more concrete example. Most SSDs now are at least 4k sectors. If you format your drive poorly (not 4k aligned) or you use an old OS that doesn't handle 4k alignment, it will wear out the SSD much sooner. Older versions of windows can't handle 4k drives well. Some did weird alignments when formatting. While some of this was patched in windows 7 service packs and newer OSes, it's still a problem when setting up. So if someone used stock windows 7 media or say vista and tried to install on a new SSD, it would cause physical harm to their device by wearing it out much more quickly. Should microsoft be responsible for that?
No and they never weren't. Windows XP even works just fine on SSDs and VENDORS released tools to perform partition sector alignment. Quite critically when Windows is installed in an out of alignment partition on an SSD Microsoft continues to provide software updates. Your example is stupid because it is a software problem fixed by vendors that has nothing to do with Microsoft and sure as fuck has nothing to do with not providing Windows Updates on an installed and working system.
I fail to see the problem.
You should get that printed on a shirt so people know what to expect from you up front.
> They also never advertised that it would work on all future computer hardware
Conveniently, I actually have the Windows 7 box and disc that I purchased right in front of me!
The top requirement is: "1 GHz or faster 32 bit (x86) or 64 bit (x64) processor".
But even if I didn't have a stupid box, and even if I had one of the licenses that is sold with physical hardware like some kind of savage, failing to issue SECURITY UPDATES to processors that are FULLY BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE is totally ludicrous, and completely unprecedented in industry. When Intel releases a new processor, no one asks "will it be backwards compatible with Microsoft Word?", because ensuring that is the case is ENTIRE POINT of Intel's business model. There's NO justification for Microsoft's actions where it polls the processor and tries to search for an exact match: in fact, I bet a few motherboard guys right now are poking around with a firmware setting just in case this trend takes off, to force a chip to identify as another chip. The CPUID instruction isn't implemented by Intel and AMD for the purpose of breaking the ability of customers to upgrade, nor does it exist to help Microsoft's bottom line. It's unprecedented, irrational, and unreasonable, and it shits on everyone else in tech, from the kid opening up a new laptop as a gift to the CEO of Intel.
> Microsoft's job is to make money for their shareholders
That's every company's job, but notice how plenty of them manage to do that without taking actions that are "just barely legal" or non-monopolist in nature.
Also, none of the OSes you describe are "ancient" or "obsolete". Both of them are supported right now. Both of them are generally superior than Windows 10 for a variety of tasks.
There's no apologizing for Microsoft here. This is a dick move, and just on the edge of what is allowed. At the end of the day, a lot more people need to be punishing Microsoft instead of feebly trying to apologize for them. Sadly, Windows users appear to be willing to put up with anything, because the cost of switching to anything else can be so unreasonable. Even this overtly consumer-hostile set of policies has only pushed Apple percent by a few, and while it has nearly doubled Linux usage, it is still a drop in the bucket as a Windows desktop replacement.
>That's every company's job, but notice how plenty of them manage to do that without taking actions that are "just barely legal" or non-monopolist in nature.
Sure, but that's because their customers will actually leave them if they become too dickish.
But there's LOTS of companies that are just as bad as MS, and people still flock to buy their products. John Deere is one that's come up a lot lately in the tech news. Oracle is another. And there's various other "enterprise" software makers that are generally regarded as making horribly overpriced crap.
>Also, none of the OSes you describe are "ancient" or "obsolete". Both of them are supported right now.
The older Windows versions are nearing EOL. You can go buy a 20-year-old used car and it's still "supported" by the manufacturer, but that doesn't mean they're doing new development on them, or that they're going to help you retrofit a new lane-keeping feature in them from their newest model.
>There's no apologizing for Microsoft here. This is a dick move, and just on the edge of what is allowed.
It *is* a dick move. What I don't understand is why this is some kind of revelation. MS has been doing dickish stuff for as long as I can remember, and really all the way back to their founding 40+ years ago. Don't you remember "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run"? But people keep flocking to buy their stuff. So why shouldn't they be dicks?
>At the end of the day, a lot more people need to be punishing Microsoft instead of feebly trying to apologize for them.
I'm not apologizing for them, I'm explaining how their behavior is perfectly rational and sensible. Very few people seem to grasp this. It's like people not understanding why wild tigers and Grizzly bears aren't nice, friendly, cuddly creatures, and instead will viciously kill you if you get too close to them.
>Sadly, Windows users appear to be willing to put up with anything
That's exactly the problem.
>because the cost of switching to anything else can be so unreasonable.
No, for many it's because they're lazy and refuse to investigate alternatives. Most home users are in this boat. But the same goes for many large companies; they could adopt a custom Linux build if they really wanted, the way some city governments in Europe did, but they just don't want to bother.
You like Windows 10? Fine. You don't mind not having control of your machine? That's your choice. I despise it. But our personal OS preferences are irrelevant to the discussion.
You're assuming that the number of non-OEM installs are an insignificant number. They are not. Between retail copies, Volume License copies, and people who have simply exercised their right upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows 10, this is still a very sizeable number. This is also irrelevant to the discussion.
What IS relevant is that they are breaking their contractual agreement to provide support for Windows based on a very narrow and completely arbitrary criteria, for no other purpose than pushing people to Windows 10.
Mainstream support for Windows 7 only ended last week. Windows 8.1 mainstream support doesn't end until *next year*. Kaby Lake and Rizen processors have been around since last year, and Windows 10 was working *just fine* with those new processors. You could buy computers and they would run Windows 7 and 8.1. And now suddenly, they've decided they're going to arbitrarily hold back security updates if the machine has one of these newer processors? Again, these are *security updates* only. If they said that they were going to withhold new features on newer processors, that would be one thing, but not providing security updates is entirely different.
And THAT is the issue here. Microsoft has pulled a Darth Vader and altered the agreement, and you have to pray that they don't alter it further.
I find OSX full of a bunch of "gee whiz" effects and puts usability behind looking shiny. Windows 8 (and to a lesser extent, Windows 10) is actually fairly minimalist, and got rid of a bunch of transparency and other "gee whiz" type effects from Vista/7. However, it lost a lot of consistency, and it's clear Microsoft didn't put a lot of thought into making it actually usable.
If you want a simple, minimalist, no nonsense, no gloss or extra junk interface while still being usable, something like XFCE on Linux is what you want.