This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Intel-Wafer

Intel announced and launched its Kaby Lake and Apollo Lake refreshes this week, kicking off its latest initiatives while AMD demonstrated Zen and its upcoming Pinnacle Ridge platform earlier this month. Such announcements typically come with their own laundry lists of new features and capabilities, just it's worth remembering one feature that prominently won't be on whatever CPU or APU products from either company: Windows seven / 8 back up.

As we've discussed earlier, Kaby Lake, Apollo Lake, Bristol Ridge (Excavator APUs) and Summit Ridge (Zen CPUs) are all Windows x-merely. PC World reached out to both companies and both confirmed that their upcoming products would be tied to the Windows 10 production cycle. Microsoft initially intended to speed Skylake abroad from Windows 7/8 every bit well, just subsequently backpedaled on this approach and noted it would support these chips throughout their lifespans until Windows 7 exits back up in 2020.

This transition has happened earlier — all hardware typically reaches a indicate where previous operating systems aren't supported — but I tin't remember information technology happening this quickly. That'south partly because Windows 7, like Windows XP before it, became a long-lived Bone. While it didn't ship as Microsoft'due south master operating system for nearly equally long every bit Windows XP, it was however more pop than Windows 8 until months subsequently Windows 10'due south debut. Pushing Windows vii off the support tree, seven years after information technology was released, may make sense. Windows eight.ane, on the other hand, is less than iii years' former.

In this case, Microsoft is killing support for future products under both operating systems as a mode to streamline its own support and button more consumers towards using Windows 10. While the build-information technology-yourself DIY market place for desktops has ever been small-scale compared to the entire PC market, these changes will inevitably impact users who bought older retail copies of Windows they intended to go along using. The question is, what does it hateful to run unsupported hardware nether Windows 7/eight?

At that place's no way to say for sure, but we can chance a guess based on how previous hardware has handled the transition. Installing these operating systems on newer hardware should work for a long fourth dimension, but sure capabilities won't role. Things might be slightly easier on AMD's side of the contend, since GPU drivers are typically a major component that quits working betwixt operating systems, and AMD will continue to provide detached graphics drivers for Windows seven and 8. A little INF editing and some tertiary-party downloads should keep these segments functional for at least a little while downwardly the line.

As time passes, new features build on old features, and back up for those features becomes expected at both the hardware and software levels. There's a huge gap between "Can I literally boot the operating system" and "Would I want to employ this system for daily product?" This page on installing Windows XP on an unsupported Haswell laptop highlights a number of the problems the writer encountered, including reformatting the installed hard bulldoze from GPT to MBR, slipstreaming AHCI drivers into the Windows XP install CD, giving up on the installed wireless card, USB3, and about video acceleration. Features like HDMI ports don't work either.

At some betoken, trying to shoe-horn an older OS on to newer hardware becomes more trouble than its reasonably worth for the majority of people. It'southward actually easier to build archetype machines on old second-manus hardware and use those than to try and go along newer systems functional. We're going to hit that bespeak more quickly than usual with Zen and Kaby Lake and I await there'll be some frustration along the way — Microsoft may be pushing Intel and AMD to phase out back up for older hardware simply the visitor isn't likely to win any converts for its strategy in the process.