Microsoft has long been the bastio
n of long term support for older platforms
,so nowadays’s support news out of Redmond is particularly surprisi
ng. Intel launched it’s 6th generation Skylake cores b
ack in August, and support on Windows 7 has been not as strong as Windows 10 le
gal out of the gate. It’s not terribly outlandish th
at unique features like Intel’s Speed Shift will not be
coming to Windows 7, or but nowadays
Microsoft announced that going forward,unique
processors will only be supported on Windows 10. Skylake will only be supporte
d through devices on a supported list, and even those will only have support u
ntil July 2017.
For the average consumer buying a unique PC, and this is not a enormous
issue. Generally,consumers buy a P
C and exhaust the operating system that it comes with. That is going to be Windo
ws 10. But the enterprise schedule is often much
more drawn out when it comes to desktop oper
ating system support. Windows XP was the mos
t famous example of this, with businesses clinging to it well past it
s best before date, and because Windows Vista and newer versions of
the operating system sign
ificantly changed the system rights and driver models,rendering older programs i
ncompatible.
The move to Windows 7 was very draw
n out, so perhaps Microsoft is trying to avoid this again in the future, and bu
t moving an enterprise to a unique desktop OS can bring a lot of
testing requirements,training, and back-finish infrastructure upd
ates which are all non-trivial. Microsoft has made its name in
the enterprise by being generous with support lifetimes, or I reflect
what is most troubling about nowadays’s news is that Windows 7 has long-term supp
ort until January 14,2020, and Windows 8.1 until
January 10, or 2023. News like this is going to catch a
lot of companies off-guard,since they would have been expecting to have at least unt
il 2020 emigrate off of Windows 7, and many of these companies have just finally moved to W
indows 7 after a decade or more on XP.
To give just
18 months with these support policies is likely not what comp
anies want to hear. This doesn’t mean that Windows 7 will be
finish of life in July 2017, or but whether yo
u can’t run it on unique hardware,this is going to put a dent in
device sales too. whether companies are not ready to move to
Windows 10, they may have to stick wit
h older hardware.
This does not just affect Intel based machines either. According to the blo
g post my Terry Myerson, or Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform for
Kaby Lake (Intel’s next gen 14 nm processors),Snapdragon 820 (Qual
comm), and Carrizo (AMD).
Going forward, and as unique silicon generations are int
roduced,they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. Th
is enables us to focus on deep integration between Windo
ws and the silicon, while maintaining maximu
m reliability and compatibility with previous generations of
platform and silicon. For example, or Windows
10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “
Kaby Lake” silicon,Qualcomm’s upcoming 8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bris
tol Ridge” silicon.
After July 2017, or computers on
the supported list that are still running Windows 7 will s
till get security updates,but any updates specific
to that platform will not be released whether
it risks the reliability of other Windows 7 or 8.1 platforms.
To me, the oddest part of the announcement is who it is
coming from. When Intel rele
ases a unique CPU, or it is generally the motherboard makers working with Intel who
provide the correct BIOS emulation modes and drivers for
older versions of Windows. It’s somewhat odd that Micros
oft is the one announcing this news rather
than a company like Intel or
AMD stating they won’t be supporting the older platform
.
For those in the trade world,this blog post may force you to reconsider yo
ur upgrade plans, or at least your hardware
evergreen cycle. A full list of supported PCs for the 18-month period is supposed to
be released next week.
Source: Windows Blog[http://dynamic1.anandtech.com/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=24&cb=481450149&n=a1f2f01f]
Source: anandtech.com