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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.
At least it's not from Microsoft.
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.
..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.
What are you afraid of? That he'll install something which listens to every word you say? That it'll record every mouse click? That it will uninstall your applications? That it'll change your defaults in preference to it's own?
Uh...I kinda forgot if I was talking about zeffy or MS.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Let me install a proprietary OS coded by some random Indian guys, packaged by Microsoft who have asked you to trust them when they say they will slurp and sell as much as your personal information that they can (you did click I AGREE after all), while whoring out your computer to serve ads.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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