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Microsoft has extended the duration and scope of support for Windows 7 and 8.1 operating systems running on Skylake chips:
Microsoft today repudiated an early retirement date for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 support, saying that it will patch those operating systems on PCs running Intel's Skylake silicon until 2020 and 2023, respectively.
The move was a complete rollback of a January [decree] that Microsoft called a "clarification" of its support policy. Under the January plan, Microsoft would have ended most support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on July 17, 2017, if the operating systems were powering machines equipped with Intel's now-current Skylake processor family. At the time, Microsoft attributed the decision to Windows 7's age and the hassle that Microsoft and OEMs would have to go through to ensure the 2009 operating system ran on Intel's latest architecture. In March, Microsoft retreated from the original mandate, saying then that it was extending the support drop-dead date by a year, to July 18, 2018. After that date, Microsoft said, it and its computer-making partners would not guarantee that they would revise device drivers to support Windows 7 and 8.1 on newer hardware.
[...] The one support rule that Microsoft did not reverse was its decision to support only Windows 10 on Intel's Skylake successor, an architecture dubbed "Kaby Lake;" and on AMD's next-generation "Bristol Ridge." That remained in place today.
Also at The Register and Windows.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday August 13 2016, @02:22PM
Microsoft did the same thing when Netbooks (incapable of running Vista) were becoming popular (They extended support for Windows XP).
I am sure that the required hard-disk making them slower was just a co-incidence.
I suspect many people are looking at either GNU/Linux or Systemd/Linux right now.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:06PM
I know lots of tablet only homes, including most of my relatives.
Early forced retirements of perfectly good hardware by lazy software providers will only accelerate this trend.
That of course is an even faster and more forced obsolescence march.
For every geek adopting any form of 'nix there are a hundred jumping to andorid or ios. (Which in turn were 'nix once upon a time, but have forgotten where they came from).
Looking at linux? Through the veil maybe.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Celestial on Saturday August 13 2016, @05:20PM
Bingo. My parents and my sister and brother-in-law have moved strictly to iPads only at home. It's enough for what they do at home, and my mother at least found notebook computers "too unsightly." She hated seeing my father's notebook computer around the house. Desktop computer? Forget about it.