Microsoft has not been doing much to put out the fires in comment threads all over the internet. The latest flare-up involves hardware support with Windows 7 and 8.x. Currently unreleased architectures, such as Intel's Kaby Lake and AMD's Bristol Ridge, will only be supported on Windows 10. This is despite Windows 7 and Windows 8.x being supported until 2020 and 2023, respectively. Microsoft does not believe that they need to support older hardware, though.
This brings us to Skylake. These processors are out, but Microsoft considers them “transition” parts. Microsoft provided PC World with a list of devices that will be gjven Windows 7 and Windows 8.x drivers, which enable support until July 17, 2017. Beyond that date, only a handful of “most critical” updates will be provided until the official end of life.
I am not sure what the cut-off date for unsupported Skylake processors is, though; that is, Skylake processors that do not line up with Microsoft's list could be deprecated at any time. This is especially a problem for the ones that are potentially already sold.
As I hinted earlier, this will probably reinforce the opinion that Microsoft is doing something malicious with Windows 10. As Peter Bright of Ars Technica reports, Windows 10 does not exactly have an equivalent in the server space yet, which makes you wonder what that support cycle will be like. If they can continue to patch Skylake-based servers in Windows Server builds that are derived from Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, like Windows Server 2012 R2, then why are they unwilling to port those changes to the base operating system? If they will not patch current versions of Windows Server, because the Windows 10-derived version still isn't out yet, then what will happen with server farms, like Amazon Web Services, when Xeon v5s are suddenly incompatible with most Windows-based OS images? While this will, no doubt, be taken way out of context, there is room for legitimate commentary about this whole situation.
Of course, supporting new hardware on older operating systems can be difficult, and not just for Microsoft at that. Peter Bright also noted that Intel has a similar, spotty coverage of drivers, although that mostly applies to Windows Vista, which, while still in extended support for another year, doesn't have a significant base of users who are unwilling to switch. The point remains, though, that Microsoft could be doing a favor for their hardware vendor partners.
I'm not sure whether that would be less concerning, or more.
Whatever the reason, this seems like a very silly, stupid move on Microsoft's part, given the current landscape. Windows 10 can become a great operating system, but users need to decide that for themselves. When users are pushed, and an adequate reason is not provided, they will start to assume things. Chances are, it will not be in your favor. Some may put up with it, but others might continue to hold out on older platforms, maybe even including older hardware.
Other users may be able to get away with Windows 7 VMs on a Linux host.
and posting comments on PC
and posting comments on PC per , does ZERO.
rabble rabble rabble rabble.
Go start a business, only sell and market systems with your favorite flavor of linux and support your users.
Then why are you posting
Then why are you posting comments? Especially ones that add nothing to the discussion other than false equivalence.
There is no discussion, just
There is no discussion, just rabble rabble rabble.
Fact of life, they chose to make this call. You don’t like it, thats fine… go run linux.
Look at how dirty and under handed intel is and what they do to OEMs to keep amd down…since FOREVER. Hell they are even subsidizing celeron chips to board markers.
and i bet every system in your house is running an intel chip.
But this oh hell no, not microsoft and windows.. time to take a stand guys.
This is nonsense
Well it would be a discussion
Well it would be a discussion if you learnt that posting new comments instead of replying make it rather difficultly to follow any discussion, let alone all the logically fallacies you keep using in an attempt to stick up for a companies that i would assume you owe nothing to.
This isn’t nonsense, just as it wouldn’t be nonsense if the company that you bought your new car from, you know the one with that 5 year guarantee, if that company announced that for the last six month of your guarantee their not going to cover the engine if it goes wrong.
It’s only by people speaking out instead of meekly accepting a wrongdoing like some Microsoft apologists like to do that there’s any possibility of change now and in the future, if you keep accepting people and companies shafting you and never say a word where are they going to draw the line?
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this is
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this is overblown and that Win7/8.1 on Skylake will keep getting security patches as expected. I’m guessing most security updates don’t require really “close to silicon” changes, so there’s practically no chance that Win7/8.1 on Skylake will miss a security patch.
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this comment from way above the b/s is probably 100% correct.
I wonder if AMD can go around
I wonder if AMD can go around Microsoft and release a driver/ update pack for their new CPUs. This will allow them to get additional selling points (you don’t have to run windows 10).
Not if the drivers had to
Not if the drivers had to make changes to the underlying OS as only Microsoft can do that, and they’ve taken back their promise to do that for Windows 8.1 six months before they initially said they would.
If the people who make
If the people who make malware are able to make changes, then AMD should be able to hire a few developers who can figure out what modifications to make.
If not, then hire some devs to figure out what Microsoft does to add the needed support on windows 10, and port it over to windows 7.
IANAL But i think that could
IANAL But i think that could be considered illegal as you’re not meant to alter Microsoft code, something that the developers of malware probably don’t care about but.
nobody has to worry about
nobody has to worry about anything, your mobo comes with drivers. Install drivers, good to go.
If 10 can use 7 drivers im willing to be 7 can use 10 drivers..and that is worse case. What mobo doesn’t come with 7 drivers… haven’t found one yet.
this is a non-issue.
MS is going to avoid patches on 8.1 / 7 that might break them. Thats all folks
Driver can’t make changes to
Driver can’t make changes to the underlying OS, only Microsoft can do that but they have taken back their guarantee that they would do that for Windows 8.1 six months before they initially promised.
im going to repeat
im going to repeat this
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this is overblown and that Win7/8.1 on Skylake will keep getting security patches as expected. I’m guessing most security updates don’t require really “close to silicon” changes, so there’s practically no chance that Win7/8.1 on Skylake will miss a security patch.
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Just repeating the same thing
Just repeating the same thing doesn’t make it or you right though, the facts are that Microsoft have reneged on their promise of mainstream support for Windows 8.1 until 17th Jan 2017.
The effects of that are irrelevant and won’t be known until after Windows 8.1 leaves mainstream support, but then again that’s not what people are rightly annoyed about, their annoyed that Microsoft have once again gone back on their word.
Enjoy your Linux
Enjoy your Linux xD
http://techreport.com/news/29627/serious-bug-in-linux-kernel-allows-for-privilege-escalation
I wonder how long it would
I wonder how long it would take to make 4 billion requests to the keyring service, that being the number of requests needed to exploit that vulnerability.