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Developer Publishes Patch To Enable Windows 7 and 8.1 Updates On New Hardware (zdnet.com)
Earlier this month, Microsoft locked Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs running on select Intel and AMD processors from receiving future security updates. Now, a developer has found a workaround. From a report on ZDNet: The new patch, from a developer using the name 'Zeffy' on GitHub, may help people caught by Microsoft's update policy for PCs running older versions of Windows on hardware with Intel's seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors and AMD's recently released Bristol Ridge Ryzen chips. [...] Zeffy's patch promises to get around this situation, which stems from non-security updates released in March that added a function to detect the hardware's CPU generation. The developer notes that Microsoft's March 16 rollup updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 contained one particularly offensive changelog entry. As reported by Ghacks at the time, the two preview updates stated: "Enabled detection of processor generation and hardware support when PC tries to scan or download updates through Windows Update."
Now, if only they had hardware capable of detecting dupes on /.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Wasn't it earlier this week that we had an article on this patch? Must be a slow news day.
There's two paths they can go down:
1. Accept that there is a sizable chunk of the user base (most probably application developers) that will continue to use Windows 7 (maybe 8.1) and remove the update blocks on these OSes. They'll get some bitching from people who felt they should have done that right from the start, but it will be short lived and life will go on with the reluctant acknowledgement that Microsoft actually listened to their customers and developer community.
2. Get into a legal and software battle with Zeffy, trying to sue him into oblivion for violating the license agreement as well as putting in "patches" to nullify the stop-update blocks. The development community will endlessly complain that builds, on older hardware because they want to do development on OSes that spy on them and provide a window into their product development, will take longer with libraries that are not fully reflective of the latest (graphic) hardware which means they'll start looking for other platforms to develop for. The bitching will be continuous with may development houses looking towards greener pastures for development programs and Microsoft's share in the marketplace will continue to decline.
I'm betting the Microsoft will take option 2.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Wow so it's true that Win7 can't support these new CPU's.... but only because M$ simply told Win7 "stop that". Who cares that it supported the chip last month.
that will stop it from installing duplicate stories?
I suspect Microsoft will launch counter measures as the whole idea is to push people to "upgrade" to Windows 10. This could become like youtube-dl and google: one side makes it possible to download data, the other side tries to block it.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I'd like to think that most businesses and IT professionals aren't going to install a Windows patch written by "Zeffy" on their customers computers, when doing so basically insures that what little support that they were still getting from Microsoft for Windows 7 installations disappears once they find that installed.
Besides, the existence of this patch isn't going to fix the lack of new or updated drivers for Windows 7 on newer hardware.
Personally, I find it kind of kind of scary that people are still trying to install an 8 year old OS on shiny new hardware, especially when knowing that you're not going to be able to get security patches for it about 2 1/2 years from now. Didn't people learn this lesson the hard way when they tried to cling onto Windows XP long after it left mainstream support? Once again, many people are going to eventually end up with is a bunch of unpatched systems still running out in the field, just waiting become a botnet the second someone installs malware or misconfigures the firewall at the site.
Linus won't port 2.6 to my Ryzen and Kabylake systems. This is so unfair.
It should be a fundamental right for all the latest features on an old kernel as change for the sake of change is scary. Is there a patch?
http://saveie6.com/
I find it more scary that the Windows series OS is finally crashing and burning. Windows 10 is not even a real OS anymore. It's just malware. There's nothing to upgrade to from Win 7/8. At least not yet.
Sane intelligent people have no choice but to stick with Windows 7. Unless you can run every app you need on Linux you need Windows and for the moment at least Windows = Windows 7 or maybe to a lesser extent 8. Maybe MS will change direction for Windows 11 or 12. Maybe not. But for now the Redmond Retards have left the rest of us with no choice.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
People who choose to use proprietary operating systems need to accept whatever their corporate overlords spoon-feed to them. I hope this "developer" (normally referred to as a cracker) goes to jail for violating some kind of DMCA or license agreement or something.
Avoid useless windows posts here:
http://pcbsd.org/
If you're running Win 7 or 8, you'll probably be OK for driver support.
While this is a dupe, I didn't get the chance to ask the question on my mind last time around.
What about virtual machines? Since in a VM, virtually all CPU feature detection still works, would this mean that a VM running Windows 7 is also fucked for updates without a hack? This isn't just about desktop users. Plenty of us have a simple and light weight Windows 7 install running on VMWare or other hypervisor for the expressed purpose of simple RDP access for admin tasks. Are these VMs running on newer hardware totally fucked for updates now?
MicroS-Evil?
Actually, us Windows 7'ers and hanging on to the previous OS for as long as humanly possible in the hope that Microsoft will pull their head out of their ass before Win7 support ends completely.
The fact is is that Windows 10 is a a godawful pile of horse shit. They took a technically beautiful OS that rightfully should have taken the world by storm, and did everything they could possible do to sour people on it, and the list of complains just gets longer as times passes. Between privacy issues, forced updates routinely hose your machine, and forced advertisements, there is absolutely no way I would use Windows 10 unless I had no other choice.
The choices are simple:
-Give back control of *my* computer
-Tell me who I can start sending invoices to every time I need to clean up their fuckups.
Until either of those things happen, I won't be installing Windows 10 on any machine I am responsible for.