Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by axsdenied on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:39AM (3 children)

    by axsdenied (384) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @11:39AM (#701845)

    To put things in perspective the CPUs supporting SSE2 came out in 2000 (Intel) or 2003 (AMD).
    That was 18/15 years ago.

    Now compare that to the phone manufacturers nowadays...

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ilsa on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:51PM

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 03 2018, @02:51PM (#701917)

    While that may be true, I don't see why Microsoft should get a special exception to Darth Vader their support agreements.

    If the tables were turned and you unilaterally changed something that Microsoft had a vested interest in, then you can bet that Microsoft would go thermonuclear on you with their lawyers and rip you more new rectums than you know what to do with. They will use any legal twist they can think of to screw you over until you beg for mercy.

    Live by the sword, die by the sword, I say.

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

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @05:05PM (#702020)

    When did they stop selling non-SSE2 processors?

    • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:43AM

      by toddestan (4982) on Thursday July 05 2018, @05:43AM (#702865)

      Intel was still selling Pentium III's (mostly for mobile) until 2003. AMD was still selling Socket A stuff as late as 2005-2006 as kind of their budget line. They then rebranded them as the Geode processors and kept selling them for a while after that.