“Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support”, said Myerson on Microsoft’s blog.
Advertisement
Essentially, all new desktops, laptops, and tablets that come with the latest processors – whether it is from AMD, or Intel, or Qualcomm – won’t support Windows 7, Windows 8 or any version of the operating system other than Windows 10.
The company’s newly announced support policy will continue to support Windows 7 compatibility through January 14, 2020 – but only on previous generation processors.
Essentially, Intel’s current Skylake processors will play nice with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 until 17 July 2017, after which the company will end mainstream security and bug fix support. With in this 18 month phase, employees will have to upgrade older operating systems to windows 10. Only certain machines will be able to run Windows 7 and 8.1 (officially) and then only till 17 July 2017.
Microsoft’s message is clear Windows 10 can work on older, newer, and still-to-come PCs. Microsoft desperately wants them all to install Windows 10 as soon as possible, but realizes it can’t shove them too hard for fear of pissing off a lot of IT people.
The new policy is likely put in place to convince users to run Windows 10 on their new hardware.
This will affect businesses and other organisations that settled on Windows 7 as their supported platform, many migrating to it after the ending of support for Windows XP two years ago.
In a serial of “clearings”…the company declared that support for…Windows [7 and 8.1] will be usable exclusively for “early generations of Silicon”. This time Microsoft has ruled out any possibilities to make new generation hardware adaptable with older operating systems.
Microsoft might get away after surprising home users with an update like this, but the enterprise clients will not be forgiving. In what is described as a “clarification” of support policy Microsoft has seemingly slashed the level of support it will be offering to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users going forward. That’s a somewhat murky area, it seems, but a Microsoft spokesperson clarified that “Microsoft will not release the updates if they risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform”.
On Friday, Microsoft announced that support for older operating systems on its new processors will be terminated.
Advertisement
For Skylake users, Microsoft is offering just 18 months of support period after which they will no longer receive any updates on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
