Microsoft will not support older Windows versions on upcoming PC Hardware
Yes, you need to read that line twice, let me rewrite it. Microsoft will force Windows 10 on all new PC hardware. The company has changed hardware requirements for supporting older versions of Windows, by only supporting new silicon on Windows 10 moving forward.
Neowin reports this today after carefully reading a company blog;
While consumers are quicker to upgrade their hardware and software, businesses are usually more conservative, and the process can take years, the new Microsoft is not that patient. The company has changed hardware requirements for supporting older versions of Windows, by only supporting new silicon on Windows 10 moving forward.
Compared to Windows 7 PC’s, Skylake when combined with Windows 10, enables up to 30x better graphics and 3x the battery life – with the unmatched security of Credential Guard utilizing silicon supported virtualization.
That being said, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will continue to receive updates through January 14, 2020 and January 10, 2023 respectively, and Microsoft is offering to help enterprises in the transition to Windows 10, by creating a list of "specific new Skylake devices we will support to run Windows 7 and Windows 8.1" through July 17, 2017.
Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support. This enables us to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon. 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.
Even though the PC market is in decline, the PC is still alive and kicking, and remains relevant due to evolving categories and innovative new features, as we've seen at this year's CES and Microsoft's"Windows 10 Devices" event last October.
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Senior Member
Posts: 6640
Joined: 2010-08-27
Seems like the crack pipe is again being passed around at MS board level.
Unless MS are actually trying to get out of enterprise, in this age of austerity and ultra-tight IT budgets, attempting to force enterprise customers to embark on large-scale IT migration projects seems quite suicidal to me.
I think this is fair, a company upgrading to the the technologies in question, which haven't even come out yet, would most likely be upgrading their support software (the OS) anyway.
Senior Member
Posts: 612
Joined: 2015-05-03
"Compared to Windows 7 PC’s, Skylake when combined with Windows 10, enables up to 30x better graphics"
Wow. I smell bull****
Senior Member
Posts: 2760
Joined: 2012-10-22
2 solutions available to make them "reconsider" and "pay" for their foolishness
1) Piracy
2) GNU
From the era of Windows 7, MS never got into consideration our arguments about the course Windows 8 and their next versions were going.

Senior Member
Posts: 1779
Joined: 2014-08-15
"That being said, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will continue to receive updates through January 14, 2020 and January 10, 2023 respectively."
This is what I want to read and its clear enough.

Senior Member
Posts: 2577
Joined: 2006-04-10
Seems like the crack pipe is again being passed around at MS board level.
Unless MS are actually trying to get out of enterprise, in this age of austerity and ultra-tight IT budgets, attempting to force enterprise customers to embark on large-scale IT migration projects seems quite suicidal to me.