Newest processors and w7/8.1

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Hello,

Does anyone have any comment or deeper knowledge about this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4012982/discusses-an-issue-in-which-you-receive-a-your-pc-uses-a-processor-tha

tl;dr version:

“We recommend [force] that you upgrade Windows 8.1-based and Window 7-based computers to Windows 10 if those computers have a processor that is from any of the following generations:
Intel seventh (7th)-generation “Intel Core” processor or a later generation AMD seventh (7th)-generation (“Bristol Ridge”) processor or a later generation Qualcomm “8996″ processor or a later generation
-Olli

 

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It is true about Intel Kaby Lake – that’s why I bought a Skylake CPU just last week (will be officially supported until 2023):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/11675/windows-7-windows-8-1-skylake-systems-supported

 

I’m not sure what is “Bristol Ridge”, but if it means Ryzen, it officially supports Windows 7:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/am4-chipset-driver.aspx

 

Don’t know about Qualcomm.

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satrow

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The Qualcomm 8996 CPU is also known as Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor:
https://www.qualcomm.com/products/snapdragon/processors/820

You’ll need to contact Qualcomm and inquire them of which versions of Windows the Qualcomm 820 processor is supported on.

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This was discussed in various forums about a year ago, or something, but I thought that the Microsoft/Intel later said that this won’t be the issue. I mean they promised that w7/w8.1 will be supported also with the latest processor. So this was a bit surprise for me.

I understand this from a vendor point of view, but this won’t make people (or enterprises…) happy. I suppose (hope) that MS would again change their decision about this issue.

For my $dayjob this isn’t very big thing because we are installing win10 as default OS, but I really can understand that this will cause not so good PR for MS.

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TechPowerUp suggests this locks the affected systems from getting updates:

Some Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users have apparently encountered one of these: a lock on system updates.

https://www.techpowerup.com/231550/microsoft-locks-system-updates-for-windows-7-8-1-on-ryzen-kaby-lake-systems

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Interestingly enough, it only mentions being able to scan for updates using Windows Update/Microsoft Update.

If that’s indeed the case, you should be able to install the updates manually, and would be better off using something like WSUS Offline since they’ve now taken that functionality out of WU.

News of this seems to be making the rounds; many sites are reporting it now and I’m assuming Woody will do so as well once he catches wind of this.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-suspends-updates-kaby-lake-ryzen,33920.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/matthew-wilson/microsoft-locks-ryzen-and-kaby-lake-users-out-of-updates-on-windows-7-and-8-1/

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Although I’ve seen lots of analyst chest-beating about the problem (and it IS a problem!) I still haven’t found one in-the-wild Win7 or 8.1 user who has actually encountered a problem.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3181806/microsoft-windows/is-microsoft-blocking-win781-updates-on-kaby-lake-and-ryzen-chips.html

Ascaris has a good analysis of the situation here:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/have-you-been-prevented-from-installing-win-7-or-8-1-updates-on-kaby-lake-or-ryzen-systems/#post-101819

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woody wrote:

I still haven’t found one in-the-wild Win7 or 8.1 user who has actually encountered a problem.

I don’t know about that… People ultimately want things to work when they spend their money. It might be that they’re not attempting the combo of old OS with new hardware very often as a result of the published skinny… Consider the comment just above:

radosuaf wrote:

that’s why I bought a Skylake CPU just last week (will be officially supported until 2023)

I don’t know if I’d call it a “problem encountered” but it looks to me like that’s a substantial decision made based on this issue.

In general…

Gamers tend to lead the charge w/regard to buying the very latest and greatest motherboards with the latest Intel chips, and Microsoft has done their homework here – With DX12 and optimization where it counts they’ve made the Win 10 system somewhat more attractive to gamers.

As far as what serious users who care about their data integrity, uptime, and privacy would buy… I myself would most likely buy Xeon E5-xxxx v4 Broadwell-based workstation hardware if I were shopping with a big budget right now. I’m not even sure you can get workstation systems built around Skylake (v5) Xeons yet, let alone Kaby Lake (which are not yet real in the Xeon lineup), and the newest processors are horrendously expensive.

Besides gamers and professionals who need high-end computing, who’s left to be having this problem? Enterprises who buy business hardware on the cheap? Even THEY haven’t been considering Kaby Lake hardware for long, and you can be sure they’re looking at proven business-oriented designs that run the OS they currently need to run. That being said, the latest Dell OptiPlex, for example, DOES sport a Kaby Lake i3-7100T, and is listed to only come with Windows 10 Pro:

-Noel

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Noel Carboni wrote:

It might be that they’re not attempting the combo of old OS with new hardware very often as a result of the published skinny

Sorry. I didn’t make myself very clear.

Microsoft lists two different error messages that are supposed to appear when you try to apply a Win7 or 8.1 update to a Kaby Lake or Ryzen computer.

I haven’t found anyone who’s encountered either of the error messages, and I’ve looked high and low. Even contacted the authors of several of the chest-beating articles.

There’s a post in one of the other threads here from someone who had no problem at all with the March 2016 Win7 cumulative update on a new (Ryzen?) machine.

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I am on the fence about this.  As a sometimes systems builder – I have come to abhor third party chipset add-ons for features that Intel or AMD have not yet directly added to their chipsets (think advanced USB, other interfaces, heck for a short time even SATA was on this list.)

I have also seen cases where newer processors could not perform at their max capabilities on older operating system driver levels.  Many times over the past 25 years.

So in that regard – for optimum stability and performance I really like when current gen hardware and software/drivers come together.  And yes, Windows 10 is growing on me (mostly from a security viewpoint) but then  I also like the very latest advances on Linux and Android.

But again:  given that there is almost no substantial difference between the newest Intel CPU and the next previous versions (no new instruction sets that I know about – if I am wrong please let me know) it feels like this is a somewhat arbitrary line in the sand.  And in light of the overly aggressive stance MS has shown during the GWX days it feels sour.

I will say that I feel the case could be different for AMD’s newest offering.  There are in my opinion some pretty substantial differences between Ryzen and older versions.  But then – AMD has stated they would provide driver support for Windows 7 and 8? Or did they?  There seems to be some fuzziness there too.

~ Group "Weekend" ~

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woody

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