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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 03 2018, @09:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the hanging-machines-out-to-dry dept.

Microsoft has quietly killed off Windows 7 support for older Intel PCs.

If your PC doesn't run Streaming Single Instructions Multiple Data (SIMD) Extensions 2, you apparently won't be getting any more Win7 patches. At least, that's what I infer from some clandestine Knowledge Base documentation changes made in the past few days.

Even though Microsoft says it's supporting Win7 until January 14, 2020, if you have an older machine — including any Pentium III — you've been blocked, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Here's how it happened. Back in March, the Win7 Monthly Rollup, KB 4088875, included a warning about SSE2 problems:

A Stop error occurs on computers that don't support Streaming Single Instructions Multiple Data (SIMD) Extensions 2 (SSE2).

I talked about the bugs in KB 4088875 — one of the buggiest Win7 patches in recent memory — shortly after it was released. At the time, the KB article said:

Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

[...] To recap: Up until June 15, Microsoft was promising that it would fix the bug that prevented Win7 Monthly Rollups and Security-only updates from installing on older pre-SSE2 machines. After June 15, Microsoft wrote off the pre-SSE2 population, without notice or fanfare, and retroactively changed the documentation to cover its tracks.


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  • (Score: 1) by sonamchauhan on Tuesday July 03 2018, @10:01AM (7 children)

    by sonamchauhan (6546) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 03 2018, @10:01AM (#701822)

    I am a Windows user exclusively now, after using Linux extensively in the early 2000s. Win10 isn't on any of my devices, except the work PC (which isn't mine anyway).

    Since Windows now insists on phoning home, so I've told it to stay there and cease trying to Wintern my devices.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:43AM (6 children)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:43AM (#701846)

    You know 7 phones home too right ?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by ilsa on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:46PM (4 children)

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:46PM (#701913)

      Specifically, Microsoft backported all their telemetry crap to all versions of windows down to 7.

      And then people started specifically excluding the relevant KBs, so Microsoft switched to 'all in one' updates which the add it back. Don't like it? You don't get any updates at all then.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:12PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:12PM (#702033)

        > Don't like it? You don't get any updates at all then.

        Indeed. I haven't updated my Windows 7 box in years, and rely on third-party security software to keep myself somewhat protected :)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @11:10AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @11:10AM (#702492)

          It's not working, and you have crap taste in pron.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @10:29PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @10:29PM (#702213)

        Then just install security only updates. poof, no telemetry

      • (Score: 1) by sonamchauhan on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:27PM

        by sonamchauhan (6546) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:27PM (#706189)

        Yes, I do not.

    • (Score: 1) by sonamchauhan on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:29PM

      by sonamchauhan (6546) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 12 2018, @01:29PM (#706190)

      Not mine 😁