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There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented on this site. |
There’s a storm brewing in the Windows blogosphere, with echo chamber wails growing, teeth gnashing over something Microsoft said. What I want to know is if anybody has seen the threatened (promised?) change in action.
[See the full post at: Have you been prevented from installing Win 7 or 8.1 updates on Kaby Lake or Ryzen systems?]
As I posted in the original thread, I’m curious to see whether updates can be installed manually (ideally with a tool like WSUS Offline). I don’t have a Kaby Lake or Ryzen CPU to test this with, but I’m hoping (assuming?) someone does and will, somewhere.
If all they’re doing is blocking the ability to search for updates with WU, that’s not really doing much other than being an annoyance. I would assume most people building new systems with KL/Ryzen are going to be savvy enough to want to be in charge of their own updating anyway. 🙂
I thought it was just a lack of drivers in W7 for these new processors. Chipsets would be a problem from an OEM too, but didn’t Lenovo say they were no longer playing nice with Intel and MS on this. Ryzen stated that they did functional tests with their latest processors using W7 and W8 and they passed, however they also said that they were built to leverage W10.
Here is a link to discussion, Re: a guy with W7 installed on a Kaby Lake system….
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3301016/skylake-kaby-lake-windows.html
It was last updated March 7, 2017.
There are levels of “not supported.”
1. “Windows 7 does not support x.”
This one is not a huge deal. For example, Windows 7 does not support USB3. In order to get USB3 functionality, you have to install USB3 drivers on your own, and that any support for issues with those drivers will not be provided by Microsoft… that will be up to the OEM of the motherboard, laptop, or the maker of the USB3 chipset. It doesn’t even remotely mean that if you have Windows 7, you can forget about using USB3.
2. “Windows 7 does not support x, and all the manufacturers of x have agreed not to provide the drivers for x on Windows 7.”
Now there’s a problem. If MS decides not to support x on Windows 7 (which is in extended support), that’s their prerogative, but it isn’t their prerogative to conspire/collude with hardware manufacturers to not provide drivers for older, more popular operating systems.
We can reasonably assume this has happened, given the statements by AMD and Intel, since neither of them ordinarily would give two shakes about what OS the person installs. They’re out to sell CPUs, not promote a given software platform, and it’s obvious that they’d rather reach a bigger market than a smaller one. AMD and Intel are both cutting off a significant percentage of their customer base by refusing to enable users to install Windows versions that currently make up 72% of the Windows market (netmarketshare.com numbers). While not all of those 72% are “never 10” people like me, a lot of them are, and ordinarily, there would be no reason for a hardware vendor to leave them out in the cold.
3. “”Windows 7 does not support x, and all the manufacturers of x have agreed not to provide the drivers for x on Windows 7. In addition, we will be blocking all Windows 7 updates on systems containing x hardware.”
This one’s beyond the pale. It’s no different than the cynical move that some printer manufacturers have made when they included a DRM chip in each of their ink cartridges, without which the printer refuses to work. It’s not that the cartridge is actually incompatible… it’s that the printer and driver look for that chip, and if it’s not there, they pretend the cartridge is incompatible to force the user into behavior that is better for the printer manufacturer and worse for himself.
I’d put a printer manufacturer on my lifetime boycott list for doing that (or the equally cynical “brick the printer after a page count threshold has been reached” thing). It’s unconscionable, wildly anti-consumer behavior. It’s not a way that a company that respects (or deserves) its customers behaves.
If only we could boycott MS forever. It simply is not possible for a great many of us, and it’s really quite sad that it’s gotten to this point. There’s always been a lot of MS hate, and much of it has been deserved, but I always liked and defended Windows. I know a lot of my Linux-using compatriots habitually call Windows a terrible OS, but it really isn’t… or at least it wasn’t until quite recently. It isn’t perfect, but it isn’t the mess that some people make it out to be either.
In practical terms, this particular issue is of little concern to me personally, as the pace of CPU speed increases has slowed to a crawl. Older CPUs remain relevant far longer than they ever have, and there are still plenty of older-generation CPUs and board available in the secondary market. Given how many of these CPUs were manufactured, it’s not likely at all that we’d get to a point where we can’t get a decent older CPU at a good price.
Whenever I do eventually decide to upgrade my CPU/motherboard once again, I would like to support AMD by going with Ryzen (or whatever it may be called at such a future date), but if they’re going to let MS bully them into not allowing any older versions of Windows (and if no workaround is found), I guess I will be stuck with older Intel platforms.
This issue, though, does matter to me as a sign of things to come, and the depths to which MS will sink to force people to use their garbage.
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I vote for break them!
While I’m still not enough a fan of Unix derivatives to want to run one of them, I certainly haven’t sent Microsoft any money lately! I’ve been buying their software since they started, sometimes in big chunks, but no more.
The Windows systems I already have – perpetually licensed, activated, and well-protected from failure – will keep for a while yet. After that I anticipate being able to move up to another several generations of high-end hardware (e.g., up to Xeon v5) without yet being forced off my pre-Win 10 systems of choice. Maybe – just maybe – they’ll turn back toward the straight and narrow and release a Win 10 that’s worth having at some point.
I’d like to hope that, in the interim, if enough consumers don’t send Microsoft money for things that are truly not better, they’ll get the message.
However, there’s no question they’ve got the world by the short hairs, and it could be that they can make money for quite a long time on ignorance and inertia (not to mention frivolity – e.g., gamers), leading people around painfully by nose rings and being paid handsomely for it. And changing the culture (*cough* lowering expectations *cough*) in the process. We all secretly hope that won’t be the case, but we can see it already happening…
The golden age of computing may be coming to a close.
-Noel
Things will change once the hardware manufacturers start losing business from people willingly not buying their stuff because of these strong arm tactics.
“The tighter you grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
– Princes Leia
If i knew such war is entertaining, i would posted the article here, since i found it (probably first) on March 13 😀
https://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/?p=1326242
There’s an excellent overview of the situation from Peter Bright at Ars Technica this evening.
Peter’s of the impression that the restrictions are coming, but aren’t here yet. He (like all of us) isn’t certain what form the restrictions will take.
Good read.
May I ask what the problem is here? Windows 7 support will end in about 3 years. It’s two years into extended support. Do you really expect them to keep supporting a nearly 8 year old operating system from 2009 on new hardware from 2016 and 2017? Also without driver support from either Intel or AMD it makes it even more pointless for Microsoft to support Windows 7 on new CPUs.
As for Windows 8.1, while it is still under mainstream support its market share is so small it’s not worth the effort on the part of Microsoft and CPU makers to support it. People seem to forget that Windows 7 and 8.1 are getting older. I know there are a lot of Windows 7 fans here but point is it’s a really old operating system. You shouldn’t really expect to get optimal performance from a nearly 8 year old operating system on a new machine from 2016 or 2017.
I get why people don’t want to use Windows 10. I don’t either. It’s a massive invasion of privacy and there are too many adverts, but to be fair that’s what version of Windows will get supported on anything after Sky Lake.
Yes, I do expect them to support Windows 7 til 2020, because we bought it with that condition. They don’t have to actively support new hardware features (such as intel speed shift) since 2015 or so, but that is fine by me, W7 runs perfectly fine on my i7 7700k and Z270 system (and yes, there are drivers for everything). All I want is to continue getting security updates until 2020, as any other system with any kind of CPU (including Skylake, which is no different than kaby lake). But with this move they artifically distinguish KL and decline security pathces, for no reason. That is the problem.
Btw, I did windows updates (including this month’s updates) and haven’t seen this error message… yet.
Yes, I do expect them to support Windows 7 til 2020, because we bought it with that condition.
There was no condition that it would be considered compatible with future hardware.
But they never did something like that in the past. People have certain expectations and being able to run on modern hardware was one of them and included in the traditional definition of support. If you bought a retail Windows version, it was very expensive and it came with the privilege to move it to a new machine so if the new machines can’t be supported, it is like not being able to transfer it to a new machine.
Plus, there is no technical difficulty supporting newer processors. It is just a marketing move to coerce users to 10 and has nothing to do with reasonable decisions from what is now an unreasonable company.
b, a lot of things you bring to these conversations are good points you being the devil’s advocate for many here, but you don’t need to always take the other side when it clearly doesn’t seem justified.
Really, I see absolutely no reasonable justification for this move. It is just another breach of trust or obvious disrespect for users since Windows 10 arrived, just like the hypocritical moves to removes some features traditionnally expected in the Pro version and reserve them for Enterprise only.
Whenever I do eventually decide to upgrade my CPU/motherboard once again, I would like to support AMD by going with Ryzen (or whatever it may be called at such a future date), but if they’re going to let MS bully them into not allowing any older versions of Windows (and if no workaround is found), I guess I will be stuck with older Intel platforms.
Actually, AMD officially realeased Windows 7 drivers:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/am4-chipset-driver.aspx
Supports Windows 10/7 (64-bit)
What is even more funny, World record in Cinebench benchmark has been achieved using Ryzen and Windows 7:
May I ask what the problem is here? Windows 7 support will end in about 3 years.
Anonymous, I take it you didn’t see my post above where I addressed this.
It’s not just that MS has decided not to support new CPU architectures on Win 7. As a product in extended support, I would not expect new features like this to be added to it. If MS had simply stopped there, I’d have no problem with their decision (for 7 only; as far as I am concerned, MS is contractually obliged to support new CPU architectures on 8.1 since it’s in mainstream support).
Unfortunately, MS didn’t stop there.
They’ve told us that not only will Microsoft not support new CPU generations on Windows 7, but neither will AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm provide the drivers necessary for any version of Windows other than 10.
That’s a little odd to hear that coming from Microsoft instead of any of the CPU manufacturers, isn’t it? Why is MS speaking for AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm? Why would hardware manufacturers, who have no interest in the success or failure of Windows 10, but who have a big interest in selling as many chips as possible, decide not to support the most popular Windows version in existence? It’s “only” got three years of life in it, but three years is a long time for computer hardware. They could score a lot of sales during those three years. This is probably not an issue for Qualcomm, as AFAIK they only have ARM-based CPU/SoCs, but it is for Intel and especially AMD, which badly needs a success in Ryzen now.
We know why MS would refuse to support anything new on versions other than 10: they have no concern for CPU sales, but they have a huge interest in the adoption rate of Windows 10. It’s all upside and no downside for MS to only support new hardware on 10. Why the CPU makers would get on board with such a thing, though, is another question, since for them, cutting off the percentage of the customer base that refuses Windows 10 as potential customers is all downside.
Remember when news leaked out a few weeks ago about AMD deciding to support Win 7 on Ryzen after all? It was quickly tamped down by AMD; they reaffirmed their commitment to only supporting 10. The first thing that I thought of was that someone at MS had a little talk with AMD. Microsoft runs the WHQL and decides which CAs get to issue certificates for the signed drivers that Win 10 x64 requires (like the ones for AMD GPUs), and I’m thinking that no one really wants to anger them.
MS has a long history of doing things exactly like making that threat, like when they told PC manufacturers that they’d better not preinstall Netscape on their machines (I believe HP wanted do to s0), or else they might not get any more licenses for preinstalled Windows. How many PCs do you think they would have sold without Windows installed?
But MS hasn’t stopped there, apparently. Now we’ve seen reports that MS may be planning to actively deny Windows updates to Win 7 installations on systems using any of the newest CPUs– in effect, sabotaging installations of Windows that don’t further the MS marketing plan. We’re talking about installations that are already up and running on these new CPUs; you can’t see the “sorry, no updates for you” message until Windows is installed and ready to update. Microsoft can’t seriously claim the update blockage is about compatibility when the “incompatible” OS is already running on the “incompatible” platform. If it truly was incompatible, or partly so (in other words, it would work, but with glitches), that in itself should be a big enough reason to get people who “foolishly” install Windows 7 on a system with the latest-gen CPU to reconsider and go to 10.
Radosuaf has indicated above that AMD has, in fact, released Win 7 drivers, in defiance of Microsoft’s ban. Good for you, AMD, but one question: Why not 8.1? Its life cycle isn’t even half over yet. Sure, there are not that many using 8.1, but it’s also nearly the same as 10 “under the hood,” so it would take a really minimal amount of work to port whatever drivers they wrote for 10 to 8.1.
Six years is a long time in the computer world. Maybe by then Windows 10 will have evolved to something decent… or maybe Linux will have caught up enough for me to dump Windows completely without any discomfort at all.
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Sorry, but I can’t agree with that, not even a little bit.
There’s nothing wrong with holding and stating a negative opinion of things one sees as being done wrong. Repeating that opinion benefits those who might not have seen it the prior time it was expressed.
I believe people should NOT just stop complaining and just accept a “new normal” when things are done wrong and getting worse and nothing seems to be changing. It just makes everything worse for everyone in the long term.
It may not be wrong for Microsoft to try to push limits for the benefit of their business, but if everyone just stops pushing back in areas where they shouldn’t be going, where does it end? Let us never forget that things are being pushed on us today that only a scant few years ago were considered solidly in the realm of malware. Collusion with other manufacturers starts to smell like the realm of anti-trust laws.
Some people actually do actually have the knowledge and intelligence to make a reasonable judgment about what’s right and wrong, and their opinions shouldn’t be suppressed.
-Noel
Got a few here.
From Shad Larsen, director of Windows business planning at MS:
“Future silicon platforms including Intel’s upcoming 7th Gen Intel Core (Kaby Lake) processor family and AMD’s 7th generation processors (e.g. Bristol Ridge) will only be supported on Windows 10, and all future silicon releases will require the latest release of Windows 10.”
From Terry Myerson, EVP of Windows and Devices at MS:
“For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming “8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon.”
It’s creepy having MS tell us which vendors will be issuing drivers for which versions of Windows. MS can certainly choose not to provide chipset drivers for the newest CPUs on 7 or 8, but to tell us that no one else is going to either is… well, as I said, creepy.
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Yes, you have a good point, but both of those are very carefully worded.
“Future silicon platforms including Intel’s upcoming 7th Gen Intel Core (Kaby Lake) processor family and AMD’s 7th generation processors (e.g. Bristol Ridge) will only be supported on Windows 10, and all future silicon releases will require the latest release of Windows 10.”
and Terry’s quote carefully side-step the question of whether Intel and AMD may, themselves, support Windows 10 – and whether those processors will be blocked pre-emptively by, say, an installer that refuses to work on those processors.
If there’s a cursory glance at the processor type by the installer, then it should be very easy to bypass using, e.g., WSUS Offline – or simply downloading and installing the MSU file.
That’s why I would prefer Win 7 users to move to 8.1.
I think you favour a half-way solution. You are not alone if this is a consolation. 🙂
Windows 10 is nothing else than Windows 8.2 or other iterations of Windows 8.
It is only a naming convention for the current Windows to be named as Windows 8.x, Windows 9.x or Windows 10.x (1507, 1511, 1607, 1703 and so on). 🙂
Sorry @radosuaf , the word “telemetry” or its slang counterpart “snooping” are overused and largely misunderstood.
You can obviously stay with 8.1, 7, Vista or even XP but I don’t think this is in your best interest.
Whatever you choose, any version of Windows, MacOS, Chrome or Linux is your choice.
And if you want to be taken seriously in any technical discussion, please avoid the “Home Version” paradigm.
The Home Version users unfortunately don’t have much choice and this is by design. They are by definition followers with little leverage in this debate.
The Home Version users unfortunately don’t have much choice and this is by design. They are by definition followers with little leverage in this debate.
Well, yes, if you’re saying that Microsoft doesn’t listen to Windows Home users, I fear you’re right.
That’s unfortunate because there are hundreds of millions of Windows Home users out there. Some folks (present company included) have the notion that Microsoft might take them into account. Or perhaps they’re to be treated like cannon fodder, like the unpaid beta testers they are.
Microsoft needs Windows Home users every bit as much as they need Volume Licensees.
(We can have a debate about “telemetry” vs “snooping” at another time. There’s much to be said. 🙂 )
Sorry @radosuaf , the word “telemetry” or its slang counterpart “snooping” are overused and largely misunderstood.
I respectfully disagree with the “overused” part, though I’ll concede that it’s misunderstood. Unfortunately, quite possibly it’s underestimated.
Microsoft, application makers, and web site designers have been adding “cloud integration” for many years. This means various parts of your system communicate autonomously or quietly with machines elsewhere, and some of it goes way back. There are in fact many, many such communications.
All serve some purpose, some directly benefiting the user and some seeming to serve only the author’s needs.
Here’s the kicker: Virtually all such information sent could be abused, especially in combination. We know that there are those who know how to build a profile from such information and that it is considered seriously valuable (look at how much Microsoft paid for LinkedIn, for example, and how many online entities try to track you).
Depending on your configuration and what you are doing, the following information may be sent to a machine elsewhere:
Some of the above are easily de-configurable, and some the OS will do unless you take exceptional measures.
There was a time when Microsoft acted in a trustworthy manner, and many people were willing to put up with some data being sent in order to be an effective partner and take part in bigger things.
Unfortunately, many folks feel Microsoft is no longer acting in ways to justify trust. You, of course, have to make your own judgment.
And this discussion does not only hinge on Microsoft. Other entities conspire to gather information from you as well. Most web sites – even this one – watch what you do online.
For someone who wants their computer to communicate with any online entity as little as possible, because they view even the potential for data abuse and privacy invasion as unacceptable, there are things that can be done, and they may be willing to accept a reduction in functionality to reduce “snooping”.
The extreme would be to just unplug and disconnect from the world entirely, and I imagine a very few actually do that. But there are intermediate measures that CAN be taken to reduce “snooping” without going off grid…
These are just a few that come to mind:
And of course you have to keep up with changes to all of the above techniques as new versions come out, and you have to re-do many of them on installation of each new version.
-Noel
Home version users are not inferior users. Power users who uses Home version should not be treated with condescension and I don’t think they should be treated less seriously. Lots of people didn’t know what they bought when they either took the free upgrade from Home 7 or 8 to 10 or when the replaced their computer for one of the majority that only comes with Home 10.
Home users often are people who were used to buy a PC with Windows preinstalled and having some control over it, not missing any feature from Pro. The differences between Pro and Home during 8 and before was not necessarily relevant to many and didn’t prevent them from having a certain control over their computer or enjoying the experience of using a computer. If Home was so bad, why would people have continued to buy it that much and not ask the retailers to sell a Pro version? Word would have been out. I don’t remember seeing a popular magazine article about why you really shouldn’t buy a home version in the past. I bet lots of retailers would have been happy to up sell a Pro version of 7 if they thought it was easy. Lots of them sold an initial preparation of your PC to decrapify it from the preinstalled trials, so they could have added a Pro license as well if it was so great for home users.
Some users bought 10 with the same expectations as before and they discovered the rules had changed once they tried to delay updating. They are now forced to be beta testers on CB, no access to CBB unless relying on tricks that might not work later, which is a big change from the time you could just easily delay updates, to name only one.
I bought my parents a Home version of 7 because I could tweak it enough for them and they didn’t need to spend the not insignificant money for the ability to join a domain or use gpedit. I expected them to be happy with it and not change for the duration of the hardware. All of the people who did that with me didn’t suffer from it. Now Microsoft has changed the game with Windows 10 and home users have clearly much less control, as Pro users clearly have less control than Enterprise, too. Now I am unhappy to be on Pro and I can’t even realistically think normal single station power users folks have a choice to buy the version they want to have the control they want at a reasonable price, which is realistically Enterprise because a non-existent real LTS general purpose version they wish for doesn’t exist. Plus now, they all have to endure ads in addition to pay for the license on a new computer.
So, I don’t think it is unreasonable for all those people who bought a Home version new computer on 10 that comes here after realizing how bad it is to expect people will do everything they can to help them manage around the new way of doing things as much as they can. Yes, it is now the way it is done, but you can’t deny that people might have had reasonable expectations things were going to be as they always have been before if they don’t follow tech closely, differences between Pro and Home having been largely irrelevant to many in the past and not having any real impact in the way they used their computer.
I upgraded some Home 7 to 10 and now I am interested in Home version because I have to manage these friends stations the best I can even if it has become difficult while before it wasn’t because the needs of those users were simple and easily met with a cleaned once during initial install PC.
Good grief. This exaggerated feeling of being superior to others is nauseating. Home users deserve to be taken seriously and should never be treated with disdain. W7/8 Home licenses were never free, so these users are customers with standing. They are not lab rats or steerage.
CH100, the problem with this is that we, the users, don’t really need to “understand” telemetry (and, by implication, to accept it). Microsoft needs to understand us, the users, when we say we don’t care what their excuses are about why it’s harmless and why we should not be concerned about it. Many of us have given due consideration to Microsoft’s explanation, and we’ve rejected it.
I don’t care if they’re only getting anonymized usage statistics and crash data… I still want an OFF button, like the one MS has given to enterprise customers. All of the same “reasons” that telemetry should stay on still exist for enterprise, and if anything, they’re even more prescient, since enterprise customers have different usage patterns that may well reveal a different set of bugs, and are clearly the preferred Windows users.
As long as there’s no OFF button for all of the telemetry, this will continue to be an albatross on Microsoft’s neck. It’s a symbol for Microsoft’s insistence upon a regime that upends the idea that Microsoft serves its customers, and replaces it with one whereincustomers serve Microsoft.
Microsoft won’t fix Windows 10 if we all just suck if up and get on board and accept servitude to MS as the new normal. Thus, I don’t think it serves anyone’s needs except Microsoft’s to have people upgrade to 10. If we don’t put them on a time-out, they will never learn better behavior.
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You can obviously stay with 8.1, 7, Vista or even XP but I don’t think this is in your best interest.
Not going into rant here, but how would you describe my “best interest”? I’d say that would be using a system that suits my needs best. As a MS systems user since MS-DOS 3.30 I can quite easily verify what is best for me, even if I’m not too technical about it. It’s like choosing your car – you don’t have to be an engineer or race driver to choose, which is the best for you.
With W10, all the annoyances far outweigh any benefits for me.
You have to agree there was no special push for Win 7 adoption and that was the biggest MS success. Yes, it was because Vista was widely perceived as “failure”, but so was/is Windows 8. After free offer, GWX and now refraining to support new hardware W10 is still far below MS expectations. If it does not proof the low quality of the product itself, how would you call it?
With W10, all the annoyances far outweigh any benefits for me.
So far that’s been my judgment too.
I FULLY evaluate every new version that’s released (thank goodness for virtual machines) in the hopes that Microsoft will finally have implemented some substantial improvements to the OS. So far, for my needs, they simply haven’t done so. And worse, their policies are moving away from my ideals (a new version release of an operating system every 8 months and user testing of the system instead of professional SVT are frankly, ridiculous).
I do understand ch100’s point – he’s implying something we all know: Keeping up with the current OS does have intangible advantages. What he has to realize, though, is that those of us who HAVE run every version – or nearly every version – of Windows released in the past aren’t suddenly “stick-in-the-muds”.
The new software actually has to be better than the old software!
If not, continuing to run the old software is not unacceptable or evil, or even worthy of criticism.
-Noel
Worth a watch:
It has been measured by those who set the benchmark in the VDI world that Windows 10 is about 20% slower than Windows 7 on virtual platform. While the reasons were not clear at the time of those measurements, it was suggested that Windows 10 runs many background system processes which have a major impact.
If this is the case on virtual platforms, I don’t see why the results would not be similar on any supported hardware, modern or not.
https://www.loginvsi.com/blog/491-webinar-the-ultimate-windows-10-performance-tuning-for-vdi
Other resources:
https://www.loginvsi.com/blog/493-tune-windows-10-in-every-vdi-environment-with-vmware-os-optimization-tool
https://www.loginvsi.com/blog/520-the-ultimate-windows-10-tuning-template-for-any-vdi-environment
https://virtualfeller.com/2015/11/03/windows-10-optimization-part-1/
Who says Windows 10 is not adopted on a large scale in Enterprise environments?
But LTS users of Ubuntu do have to upgrade every few years.
Yes, but not like Windows 10, where it is every few months.
Here is an addition article on this subject by Ed Bott:
Microsoft begins blocking updates for older Windows versions on newer hardware
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-begins-blocking-updates-for-older-windows-versions-on-newer-hardware/
Windows 7 is supported until 2020, and Windows 8.1 will get updates until 2023, right? Not if you’re trying to run those older Windows versions on new hardware, as some frustrated customers discovered this week.
By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | March 17, 2017 — 13:01 GMT (06:01 PDT) | Topic: Enterprise Software
Anyone running an older version of Windows on new hardware received a rude shock this week when the latest Patch Tuesday updates rolled around.
Instead of receiving the latest security updates for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, those customers saw an error message instead.
Unsupported Hardware
Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows and you won’t receive updates.
This issue occurs with newer hardware equipped with 7th-generation Intel processors (“Kaby Lake”) and AMD Ryzen (“Bristol Ridge”) chips. Systems with the Intel CPUs installed went on sale in late 2016. Devices built using AMD’s new chips are just beginning to reach the market.
……..
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1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB
SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64
CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable
2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI
1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.
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It’s just quoting of the article everybody knows already :). They even write: Microsoft representatives did not respond by press time when asked for comment. My guess is they are just probing general audience – if the response will be strong, they’ll say something like “it was just testing”. If the response won’t be strong enough, they’ll carry on.
I think that’s likely. I’ve been in touch with the authors of several articles in the same vein, and I haven’t found anybody who’s actually seen the described block in the real world. I think MS is tossing up a trial balloon. Not sure why it erupted on Reddit, but it did, and a large percentage of all the Windows bloggers on earth repeated the accusation.
What Subscription? “Couldn’t Microsoft strive for some middle ground, such as a disclaimer that there might be some incompatibility?” And then be obligated to support any issues caused by incompatibility for six years?
They are BOUND to do it for the next year.
I don’t understand why this is suddenly newsworthy (again) now. What part of Microsoft’s statement more than a year ago did people not understand?:
“For example, Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming “8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon.”
January 15, 2016
Maybe they understand it but still just don’t think it’s right.
-Noel
I’ve already described the difference in detail in two posts above.
“Not supported” means just that: they will not offer you support for doing whatever it is you’re talking about. USB 3.0 is “not supported” on Windows 7. If you want to use it anyway, you will have to locate and download a driver for your USB 3.0 chipset on your own, and you will have to get support (if you need it) from someone other than Microsoft. That’s “not supported.”
That’s not the extent of it, though. MS has also told us that not only will MS not support this, but neither will AMD, Intel, or Qualcomm, which is in contrast to the interests of any of those chipmakers. One would have to wonder why they would agree to this. AMD, for one, looks like it has not, as Radosuaf has pointed out.
The new news here is MS taking the extraordinary step of sabotaging running installations of Windows 7 on “unsupported” CPUs to further their agenda. This is well beyond “not supported.” Way, way beyond it.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Could you explain which part of your agreement has been violated? Was there a guarantee that it would be compatible with any yet-to-be-invented technology?
Yes, but if you recall, the original statement from Microsoft banned Skylake processors as well. In March, MS softened its stance on Skylake.
I think MS is testing the water, to see how many hackles they raise. The universe of Kaby Lake Win7 installations is not large. I bet they’re trying to gauge how much of a negative reaction kicks up.
It bears repeating: I’ve tried and tried, and can’t find one single soul who’s had trouble applying any of the recent Win7 updates to a Kaby Lake or Ryzen processor.
I guess this is a reply in the negative: we have several Kaby Lake workstations on Win 7 Pro and all of them took the patches released this week (March 2017) just fine.
But . . . they are all behind a WSUS server too. I do not know at this time if that makes any difference at all.
On the off chance it might: I would be looking hard at some of the recent optional patches to see if any of them might trigger this block. We generally don’t sync those on our WSUS management servers.
~ Group "Weekend" ~
Bringing an older topic back, but I can confirm this. I just built a new Ryzen 7 system, installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, joined it to my domain, and updated it through WSUS. No errors about the CPU, no problems installing updates. Everything runs great!
So maybe not an option for most users, but you can run Windows 7 on Ryzen if you use WSUS to manage your updates. This makes a lot of sense, IMO, because Microsoft doesn’t want to make its enterprise customers mad.
You both have a valid point. At what point do our reasonable expectations of usability become unreasonable? I’m not sure I can answer that.
See below for a warning about this Forbes article – and Forbes discussions of Windows in general.
This is similar to folks who buy a tablet or a phone, and it turns out the next OS version upgrade is not compatible with the hardware, beyond needing to update drivers. This has happened to iPhone and Android phone and tablet users for years. M$ is just playing catch-up if you accept this perspective.
-- rc primak
I wouldn’t have bought it if I’d been warned a year ago that it wouldn’t be considered compatible with my OS of choice. But Windows 10 is the last Windows, so I should be OK.
That’s what I did – I bought Skylake last week to be future-proof (oh irony, you buy older hardware to be future-proof – but looking at the “progress” Intel is making with their CPUs lately, it doesn’t really matter). If MS won’t change their minds AGAIN, I will be provided with support until 2023. But this is so against Bill Gates’ vision. Don’t know how old are you but I still remember Windows 95 lanuch I attended over 20 years ago. It was so exciting to see that “Plug and Play” concept in real life. As long as the manufacturer provides the driver, you just plug it in and it works. After years of being forced to use options provided by poor developers having to deal with endless sets of configurations (like you could have a great SVGA card capable of 1024×768 resolution, but the highest option in game was VGA – 320×200, 256 colours, you cold have any soundcard, provided it was Sound Blaster compatible – if no, no sound in games) we were given FREEDOM – we could use any “Windows compatible” hardware and don’t worry, softwre developers didn’t have to implement various hardware support, the could just focus on developing their software.
For those office oriented, I remember how people were excited about WYSIWYG in Quattro Pro spreadsheet – and you got all this out-of-the box in Windows. For all applications. Amazing.
Windows gave us freedom – now it forces updates, installs 3rd party bloatware, spies on us, shows ads here and there, blocks hardware support etc.
Now it turns out that you can have a hardware producer (AMD) that officially releases W7 drivers on their website, but MS refuses to support it.
I used to have lots against Windows (in the 98/XP days), I used to think Bill Gates is responsible for all the evil in the World. But is seems he indeed was a visionary the company really lacks at the moment. Without him basically everything there is just getting worse.
Windows 10 is the last Windows? Probably, people will switch somewhere else. In EU where I live, Linux starts to be visible in the public sector. It just needs a little more push. IE6 was the only browser to have, right? Where is IE11/Edge now? 🙂
If you can buy a version of Linux which guarantees support for any and all new hardware for the next 10 years, then I think you should buy it. Any idea which one that would be?
b,
We are not talking about some obscure pro sound card here, but a processor that could be sold to millions, something that people generally expected support for in the past versions of Windows.
Ascaris made a very strong point by doing the distinction between just letting other companies provide drivers without providing support and actively breaking the OS for those who uses these processors even if drivers were provided. The fact that it is contrary to the interest of those companies to not provide drivers for 7 when it is still so much used is at least a bit uncomfortable and can make us question the hidden motives as it makes no sense. Yes, 7 is out in less than three years, but Intel gets out new processor every year and I doubt they would say let’s skip selling processors for two years and a few months because it is not that long. Let’s complain about the decline of the PC instead.
I said it before and I think I will be proven right, I updated my 8 stations to 10 as I am sure Microsoft will not honor their implicit agreement with their users considering the small market of 8 and the huge incentive for them to have nobody not on 10, especially once 7 is out of support. You might try to say how fair it is, but I doubt you will be very convincing to a lot of people. If you tell me you find it fair because there was a free offer to get on 10, then I will respond that MS should then at least offer that again to all 8 customers when 7 is out. Not costly and more friendly. But they didn’t with Vista when support from Adobe stopped even before XP. Was it that hard to reward your early adopters of the beta version of 7 by offering them a free upgrade once the market shrunked so bad because, for the same reason as 8, MS made an OS that was intensely disliked?
You can love Windows 10, you can think there is no problem with it, but that doesn’t mean it should be aggressively pushed like that.
b,
We are not talking about some obscure pro sound card here, but a processor that could be sold to millions, something that people generally expected support for in the past versions of Windows.
But will it be sold to millions who want to run Windows 7 on it?
I said it before and I think I will be proven right, I updated my 8 stations to 10 as I am sure Microsoft will not honor their implicit agreement with their users considering the small market of 8 and the huge incentive for them to have nobody not on 10, especially once 7 is out of support. You might try to say how fair it is, but I doubt you will be very convincing to a lot of people.
I don’t think most people care about this issue at all, because they get the latest version of Windows when they buy a new machine.
You can love Windows 10, you can think there is no problem with it, but that doesn’t mean it should be aggressively pushed like that.
I just think Windows 10 is better than any previous version in many ways (and I’ve used and supported Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 a great deal). But there are a few aspects of it where I could be extremely critical of Microsoft; e.g. documentation, help files/sites and error messages etc.
If you can buy a version of Linux which guarantees support for any and all new hardware for the next 10 years, then I think you should buy it. Any idea which one that would be?
First, you don’t buy most Linux distros. They are free and open source (FOSS).
To the point, Ubuntu on my old laptop kept supporting the Intel-NVidia hybrid graphics hardware from at least 2010 until about 2021, if I would have stayed with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (supported for five years) and never upgraded the Linux kernel beyond version 4.8 (version 4.4 is standard issue for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). So most Linux distros do support even aging hardware for about ten years, all told. Some developers and third parties can extend support even longer, but this gets pretty dodgy after only five years or so.
Except for Miracast and a few very recent graphics cards, Ubuntu 16.04 and 16.10 have kept up with new hardware for as it has come out. Which is remarkable, considering the lack of cooperation from many vendors. Ubuntu 14.04 and even 12.04 are still in use by some folks, and have proven adaptable to most newer hardware as it has come out.
So Linux does meet your expectations, if properly cared for, and with a good selection of distro, not just the “flavor of the month”. And it does so for free.
-- rc primak
Things will change once the hardware manufacturers start losing business from people willingly not buying their stuff because of these strong arm tactics. “The tighter you grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” – Princes Leia
I would love to think this is true, but the average user who uses a PC like an appliance is not going to willingly decide to not buy given hardware, since it is the OS that is the interface with the hardware. The alternatives are Windows, Apple with MacOS – a reliable operating system on average hardware but way more expensive, Chromebooks with ChromeOS (limited for many), and the varieties of Linux (perceieved by many to the domain of geeks and hackers.
These users (except for maybe gamers and hobbyists) just want a PC to work when it is turned on and gives them the software they need, or it is easily available for their needs, supports their devices and peripherals, AND is compatible with the software that ships with their devices and peripherals They want software that downloads, installs and runs immediately. Many devices are supported under Linux, but you will not find a CD of Linux drivers in the box. Instead you need to hunt it out on the manufacturers website of search repositories and forums. I view that as common and popular as new car buyers asking the dealer if the oil filter is user accessible for doing your own oil changes.
Many do not care about snooping and are more than willing to adapt and invite “strangers into our house” a/k/a spies like Siri, Alexa, and Cortanas and then for convenience allow them to listen and send their conversations to the mothership in the void.for analysis or recognition
Keep in mind it was only a year or so ago that the tech sites were filled with news that Intel was going to abandon the DIY market and discontinue enthusiast CPUs for home and boutique builders. It will only be when governments and major corporations with 10s of thousands of PCs decide to abandon MS and/or WinTel that they maight change However, I suspect it will still be the same, the Enterprise will get some tools and the masses will remain the “tools” or beta testers
Sorry for the negative outlook, but I see no real backlash in the consumer marketplace. To be meaningful, it will have to be the enterprise who resists.
“These users (except for maybe gamers and hobbyists) just want a PC to work when it is turned on and gives them the software they need, or it is easily available for their needs, supports their devices and peripherals, AND is compatible with the software that ships with their devices and peripherals They want software that downloads, installs and runs immediately. Many devices are supported under Linux, but you will not find a CD of Linux drivers in the box. Instead you need to hunt it out on the manufacturers website of search repositories and forums.”
This actually isn’t accurate. Many modern linux distros include a software manager that pulls all of the drivers for your specific system from linux respositories, in addition to providing an extremely lengthy and myriad selection of system compatible desirable software packages. In fact, this model is better than windows, since you don’t even need to know, for example, if your system is 64bit or 32bit. The software manager knows. And it only pulls in the appropriate drivers and software for your system. And, yes, it “downloads, installs and runs immediately.”
One less excuse for not switching to linux batted away….
🙂
You misunderstood my comment. It was NOT an excuse not to use Linux as I have done this and am using Linux and set up others. It was a caution for average Windows users to do homework and test. Most of the non-techie types I know are unfamiliar with even creating the live media for an install.
However, if a person who is not a techie tried an install Linux, (which as you say is easy) it is not until after the boot where you might find the feature/peripheral/applet did not work. That is when the “fun” begins. I have known users of Linux that did not find out the sound was not working, until they tried to ply music weeks later.
If your peripheral is not supported in a given distro, and I know many scanners in AIO printers are problematic, even though the fax and printer work, you need to hunt and tweak or use another printer driver that may work.
The software managers have come a long way, but there still are some gaps and the odd items that is not supported. Most folks are not even comfortable or familiar with live media testing to assist them in picking a distro.
The issue is not the lack of capability in the Linux distros, it is the lack of capability in the end users who do not WANT to be a techie. They just want something to work. Personally I believe if they sat down at a Linux machine they would be converted. However, I do not think they would want to go out and do a PC build or become a command line wizard. Telling your average ‘appliance PC’ user to go into the command prompt in Windows almost causes brain lock.
Good descriptions @ BillC & @ Anon about Linux distros and informative!
Telling your average ‘appliance PC’ user to go into the command prompt in Windows almost causes brain lock.
The above quote was a remark that I really could relate to. You know really we’ve been ‘potty’ trained and brought up by MS over these years gone by…… with all the ‘easy’ way of doing things with a pretty GUI to help us along and do things in ‘plain-speak’ and it certainly didn’t help us and teach us to dig deep and use the Command interface with Windows. If the opposite had happened, most of us would probably have found the transition to something like Linux a lot easier. Also a lot of us (and I’m referring to us all non-techy types) don’t particularly want to get too deep into all this…….. we want simplicity and ease so that we can go about what we originally bought our computers for. Besides the browsing and email part of it……… there are other areas that some of us are involved in and do well………… and that is what we want to spend our time doing. However, that said……. we are all in this boat together because we are like minded in our perception of what we feel is suitable, and fair, and honest, and acceptable, and just, to us, the END USER… and unfortunately not only is Windows 10 a bad proposition, but Microsoft is too. And sadly it doesn’t look as though they are going to change anytime soon.
Regarding MS’ big push for Win10. I was browsing on a newspaper site yesterday where I had disabled one of the adblockers I have (a few days or a week before all this)…….. and found a popup window in front of me asking me to take a survey about Windows 10……. 4 questions……. when would I be upgrading to Win 10 and giving me 4 choices……… like this year, next year, etc. I then saw an ad on the right side about windows 10. I have never seen that on a respectable newspaper website before…. ever! I simple enabled my adblocker……… and refreshed the page and it was gone! Let me also say that it has only been recently that I’ve used adblockers so I’m aware of most of the ads that appear on these sort of sites. So to me this advertising MS has adopted is a new concept to try and entice/tempt users to change.
Just my 2 bits! LT
I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I can’t put it down
I was not suggesting that this was your specific “excuse.” But it is one of the common misunderstandings regarding the current state of linux distros that *is* frequently cited by people as a reason not to try linux. And while, yes, there are periodic gaps in driver access from the software manager. In my experience those gaps are very infrequent. And it’s worth noting that those same gaps exist in windows and always have. I bought a new laser printer about 9 months ago and I had to do a little hunting online to find the right printer driver for my windows 7 desktop. And I needed to know basic system info regarding my windows system to ascertain which was the right driver. Ironically, my linux mint software manager yielded both the correct proprietary driver and the generic linux version. No command line interaction was required at all.
I’m not suggesting that there is no learning curve with linux and that making that transition from windows is all rainbows and unicorns. But it also isn’t the bleak, barren command line wasteland that many folks have been led to believe. Don’t kid yourself. For the majority of run-of-the-mill PC users, windows itself is incredibly complicated. It is why these types of sites and blogs have proliferated for decades, because the average user doesn’t know how her/his system works and they possessed neither the knowledge nor the inclination to learn how to muck about with registry settings or the dos/command line interface. So they would come to these sites and happily follow line-by-line directions for tweaking various settings to make their PC experience safer and/or more satisfying to use.
And in the past 18 months or so, even larger numbers of people have come to these sites in response to the GWX and telemetry nonsense. And those same people have delved into altering their windows operating systems at a level of detail they’d never dreamed of doing previously. And my point is that this level of involvement is just as, and potentially more, detailed and complicated as what is required to setup and operate a current linux distribution. And reinforcing the incorrect notion that linux is substantially more complicated and onerous than what they’ve had to learn and do with their windows systems does those people a great disservice.
From my point of view…….. I wasn’t comparing the complexities of the two OS’…….. rather that in moving/using Linux it would be a big change as most of us have become so accustomed to Windows…..and especially the command line in Linux, where far more is done than in Windows generally it appears. I’ve got Linux Mint/Cinnamon/Sarah on Virtual Box on an external and have been playing with it. I originally gave myself 4 years to become acquainted with it…… being the time when support for Win7 will end. But with the way things seem to be heading it may be sooner than later!
To tell the truth I have never, ever had to deal with or replace drivers. I have a very healthy respect for things under the hood. I don’t touch usually….. and then with great caution!
So my admiration and amazement in how all you tech guys and gals work things out…. is right up there!!!! And it’s v. comforting to hear all of you speak with your differing views and judgements. Don’t get me wrong……. over the years my knowledge/learning of things both with the web and computers has grown by leaps and bounds as possibly most of us. We’ve grasped the essentials and adjusted things for ourselves both in the privacy and security areas without too much trouble. The fact that those that are here and not IT professionals shows that their degree of expertise is up there…….. say 50 to 70%….
But I guess it’s horses for courses…… we are all good at something…… and it’s nice to be in an environment with so many different modalities where we can all learn from each other! After all that was the intended vision for THE BIG WWW. LT
And some distros will allow you to install on one machine and then swap out the installed distro HDD/SSD into a completely different hardware/motherboard machine and all will work as intended, without any internet access or updating. 🙂
It is my understanding that Microsoft sells operating systems. Companies like Intel, Realtek, Atheros, Nividia, ect.., supply drivers for the components they sell to the motherboard manufacturers, or the components they sell to consumers.
I have never gotten a driver from Microsoft. I either get them from the Mobo manufacturer or the component supplier directly.
It seems it is up to the aforementioned companies, not Microsoft, whether an OS is “supported” for a given CPU.
The issues seams to be whether or not Microsoft will supply the updates for W8.1 and W7 to users who wish to install their OS on a Kaby Lake system.
I have 4 different chip series in mine and my families computers. Sandy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake and an old laptop with the GL40 mobile chipset. They all use the same security updates.
There might be a few variations, I really don’t know. I am not inclined to compare all 100+ security updates across all the machines to find out.
Microsoft’s update catalogue never asked me what CPU the update is for. Only if it was a 32 or 64 bit system. This leads me to believe that the updates are CPU agnostic. Correct me if I’m wrong. If so, what makes Kaby Lake different?
Some have already stated they have W7 on a Kaby Lake system, with updates. So it appears this “support” issue is something else.
Microsoft supports its OS, not hardware.
To me, Microsoft saying they won’t “support” a certain CPU is code speak for we will deprive you of updates for your OS because you won’t switch to W10.
It seams Microsoft will begin to start going out of their way to deliberately prevent updates from being available to an OS-CPU combo they don’t like. They will spend money and resources to sabotage W7 and 8.1 users instead of using the effort to stop issuing updates that break things.
It is my understanding that Microsoft sells operating systems. Companies like Intel, Realtek, Atheros, Nividia, ect.., supply drivers for the components they sell to the motherboard manufacturers, or the components they sell to consumers.
I have never gotten a driver from Microsoft. I either get them from the Mobo manufacturer or the component supplier directly.
It seems it is up to the aforementioned companies, not Microsoft, whether an OS is “supported” for a given CPU.
The issues seams to be whether or not Microsoft will supply the updates for W8.1 and W7 to users who wish to install their OS on a Kaby Lake system.
I have 4 different chip series in mine and my families computers. Sandy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake and an old laptop with the GL40 mobile chipset. They all use the same security updates.
There might be a few variations, I really don’t know. I am not inclined to compare all 100+ security updates across all the machines to find out.
Microsoft’s update catalogue never asked me what CPU the update is for. Only if it was a 32 or 64 bit system. This leads me to believe that the updates are CPU agnostic. Correct me if I’m wrong. If so, what makes Kaby Lake different?
Some have already stated they have W7 on a Kaby Lake system, with updates. So it appears this “support” issue is something else.
Microsoft supports its OS, not hardware.
To me, Microsoft saying they won’t “support” a certain CPU is code speak for we will deprive you of updates for your OS because you won’t switch to W10.
It seams Microsoft will begin to start going out of their way to deliberately prevent updates from being available to an OS-CPU combo they don’t like. They will spend money and resources to sabotage W7 and 8.1 users instead of using the effort to stop issuing updates that break things.
Considering that the W10 Cabal is doubling down on W10 only for Kaby Lake and Ryzen, how will this policy be applied to W10 going forward? The 2015-2025 life cycle for W10 will be end of life in 2025. The 2025-2035 W10 life cycle will then follow.
If I buy a new Windows laptop in 2020 to replace my W7 laptop, it will come with W10, but even though it will be the latest W10 silicon, support will be tied to the 2015-2025 W10 life cycle. In 2020 it will start under extended support with no mainstream support at all. Even worse, if it was W8, it would only get 2 years of extended support.
I’d have to buy new silicon in 2025 if the W10 Cabal sticks with the current support policy.
W10 may be forever, but as far as life cycle support goes, it is still the old 10 year life cycle strategy. The license entitlement is tied to the originating hardware on which the OS was installed.
Do I have this wrong?
Windows support and device support are two different things.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-commits-to-10-year-support-lifecycle-for-windows-10/
A note to that policy qualifies the support commitment to devices where the OEM continues to support Windows 10 on that device.
So you see, Windows 10 support is dependent not just on Microsoft’s ten-year commitment to OS and updates support, but also on the device manufacturer’s willingness to continue to support that device for Windows 10. Device life cycles range from two years for phones and tablets to over five years for high-end laptops and desktops.
-- rc primak
to all – just a suggestion
to reply to specific anonymous
you can click on REPLY and mention the comment no. right after
ie. this one is #102266
and assuming BrainL was replying to anon #102253
have a good wkend ahead
@abbodi86 is correct
Microsoft just extended its deadline for compatibility and reliability fixes for Win7 and 8.1 running on the newest Intel processors (6th-generation “Skylake”) until July 17, 2018.
More importantly, all security patches will be available until Win7 and Win8.1 end of life: Jan 14, 2020 for Win7 and Jan 10, 2023 for Win 8.1.
In general, it’s a good idea to double-check what you read in Forbes. The official announcement is here: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/windowsitpro/2016/03/18/updates-to-support-policy-for-skylake-devices-running-windows-7-and-windows-8-1/
That’s entirely possible.
I see Windows turning into a “thin client” operating system. Windows Cloud is likely the direction MS wants to take with all of us. Of course, the devil’s in the details.
Not for consumers. Your head is in the Enterprise Cloud.
Google is the only vendor offering consumers a cloud presence, i.e. Chromebooks.
Microsoft threw out the W10 Cloud bone which has not been followed up. Why? They do not know their customers, they do not want to know their customers, They do not have customers, they want drones.
Gack! Me, too….
I read something that I saved from an article I was reading earlier somewhere else……… which
fits in perfectly with what you just said………..
“Anyone can get a life.
Anyone can lose it
But who will dare to inhabit the thing
And USE it ?…..
..Worn in , bashed in, cried in,
And the great thing –
A lived in life
Can be happily died in…”
Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte and MSI are all providing W7 & W8.1 drivers for their Mobo’s, for both Kaby Lake and Ryzen.
I think this is turning out to be a lot of grief over nothing. It seems the market forces have already spoken, and with everybody but Microsoft is supporting W7 & W8.1 on these new systems, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds.
Will they really be that petty and vindictive…
Tried W10 over a longer period than a day and concluded it’s corporate malware, not even close to linux.
March, 2017 Preview of Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB4012218)
This update killed my updates for Windows 7. I have a Kaby Lake Processor and now I can not get anymore windows updates. Please see my screenshots attached.
Is there any work around for this?
Thank you
Does WUMT still work?
This is an excellent question and the implications are very subtle.
WUMT uses the Windows Update agent already installed, but can use any agent, without forcing an upgrade, as WU would do for example with 7.6.7600.256 being upgraded to 7.6.7600.320.
I do not endorse this approach of not allowing the normal WU mechanism to complete, but it is a very interesting path to investigate. 🙂
I doubt WUMT would work, it’s the same WUA engine
unless the block is done to Windows Update UX only
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