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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Microsoft blocked the delivery of Windows Updates recently to Windows 7 and 8.1 devices powered by a next-generation processor.
The company announced the support change in January 2017. Broken down to the essentials, it means that Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge processors are only support by Windows 10, and not older versions of Windows.
To hammer that home, Microsoft made the decision to block Windows Update on Windows 7 or 8.1 PCs with those next generation processors.
The company introduced patches, KB4012218 and KB4012219 for instance, which introduced process generation and hardware support detection on Windows 7 and 8.1 systems.
Windows users who run Windows Update get the unsupported hardware error prompt when they try to scan for and download the latest patches for their -- still supported -- operating system.
GitHub user zeffy made the decision to take a closer look at how the actual blocking is done on the operating system level.
Details on exactly what was done are available in the article.
Source: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/04/18/bypass-for-windows-update-lock-for-modern-processors-found/
This will be especially handy for those whose machines were entitled to updates but were mistakenly blocked from receiving them.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Saturday April 22 2017, @03:42AM
i don't know that i agree. They may not be aware of linux and other alternatives, so fighting windows is the only option they have. They may not be aware that linux will work for them... but that assumes it would and honestly for most of those people i would argue it would probably wouldn't. People who 'fight' windows tend to be at least power users or gamers; so even if not really that tech savvy, they still likely use more advanced programs and tools, or games etc that are dependent on windows.
They aren't people who just need a working web browser.