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Microsoft Backtracks on Windows 7/8.1 Support on Intel Skylake Chips

posted by n1 on Saturday August 13 2016, @01:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the four-more-years dept.

takyon writes:

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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @10:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 13 2016, @10:33PM (#387638)

    Do yourself a favor and turn off the indexer and the prefetcher. It will run a lot better.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @01:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @01:26AM (#387672)

    I honestly fail to see any attraction to using any M$ product. It's like paying to be sodomized.

    Followed by:

    Do yourself a favor and turn off the indexer and the prefetcher. It will run a lot better.

    Yes, indeed! If you are being sodomized by Micro$oft, the last thing you want is for the system to lag.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @01:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @01:48AM (#387676)

    Actually, a lot of the updates to Vista improved things too. It pretty much ended up being Windows 7 with a slightly different interface and a way too aggressive indexer and prefetch. Of course, with the way Windows 7 has gone to shit, Vista may be the same thing.