
Latest Intel, AMD chips won't support Windows versions earlier than Windows 10 - infodroid
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/02/windows_intel_kaby_lake_amd_zen/
======
dnlrn
I don't get what the big deal is. Does Linux add support for newer Intel and
AMD chips in old kernels? No. Does Apple add support for newer Intel and AMD
chips in older versions of Mac OS? I'm sure no. So why does Microsoft have to
do something the other companies aren't doing either? I mean it's not like
they actively prevent older Windows versions on running on these chips, it's
just that they don't add support for the newest chip features.

Sometimes when I see these newspapers bashing Microsoft I question whether
they even think about what they are writing before pressing the publish
button. Headline: Microsoft is doing what all other OS companies are doing
too.

~~~
morganvachon
It's actually not a big deal but with the issues Microsoft has had with
Windows 10 over the past year, it makes for good media fodder to stir up the
masses. When this first hit the tech news sites earlier this year, my answer
to anyone shouting "OMG I can't have my Win7 on my Skylake, die Micro$oft!"
was to politely ask them to attempt to install Windows 98 on a Core i-series
machine. You could see the gears turning in their skulls and revelation would
dawn upon them that yes, this has happened before, many times, and is a
perfectly normal progression.

It's not even limited to Microsoft; you can't install Mac OS X 10.7+ on
anything older than a 2nd generation Core2 Duo, and with good reason. OS X
10.6 ran like crap on the first gen Core Duo and Core2 Duo machines, despite
being fully supported by Apple.

There comes a time when the software exceeds the capabilities of the hardware,
and this is no exception.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
No, that's nonsense.

No one liked Win 98, and it was comprehensively EOL'd by Win XP - which always
ran fine on iX machines.

Now, many people still prefer Win 7 to the creeping user-hostile horror that
is Win 10 - if only because it's possible to use Win 7 with relative
confidence that an update won't suddenly kill your machine, or your webcam, or
your Kindle, or whatever else MS manages to screw up in the next year or two.

That's not a trivial difference. MS+Intel are attempting to force users
towards an OS that is inherently broken, and - given the level of competence
on display in the Windows division at the moment - is unlikely to _ever_ work
reliably.

~~~
dao-
> No one liked Win 98,

As I recall Win 98 and 98SE were hugely popular. People may not have loved
them, but I don't think it was generally disputed that they were a huge
improvement over Win 95. In fact, hardly anyone liked Win ME, and many clung
to 98 until XP arrived, much like people clung to XP and avoided Vista until
Win 7 arrived.

~~~
bobajeff
My dad would still use 98 today if he had the choice. He's increasingly hated
every version of Windows since 98.

------
jxy

        Microsoft chooses not to support new Intel & AMD chips in Windows versions earlier than 10.
    

The title makes it the fault of chip makers. Isn't it just a software problem?

~~~
infodroid
What I understand is that Intel and AMD decided not to work on drivers for
their new chips to support older Windows, aligning themselves with the new
Microsoft support policy... Intel said: "Intel will not be updating Win 7/8
drivers for 7th Gen Intel Core per Microsoft's support policy change". AMD
said: "AMD's processor roadmap is fully aligned with Microsoft’s software
strategy". Microsoft are also holding back, for example by not supporting 7th
gen xHCI USB controller on older versions of Windows.

So it doesn't seem like it is Microsoft's choice alone. I think the current
title (Latest Intel & AMD chips won't support Windows versions earlier than
Windows 10) is not pointing blame at anyone, just saying that the chips are
not going to be officially supported.

Source: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/3112663/software/microsoft-
ma...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/3112663/software/microsoft-made-em-do-
it-the-latest-kaby-lake-zen-chips-will-support-only-windows-10.html)

~~~
Sylos
Rationally speaking, yeah, it doesn't mean much more than that they won't work
with it, independent of who's to blame, but I did initially still read it as
if it was Intel's and AMD's fault, and I'm obviously not alone with that
either.

Better would have been like I've already used it: "Intel's and AMD's chips
won't work with Windows 7/8"

Then it's completely open why that is and the reader can make up their own
mind.

~~~
geezerjay
> Better would have been like I've already used it: "Intel's and AMD's chips
> won't work with Windows 7/8"

A much more appropriate description would be that Microsoft won't support
Intel's and AMD's newer chips in the company's earlier OSs.

------
jcbeard
Slightly mis-leading headline....bug it's direct from the register. tldr; the
headline should read "Windows 10 is the only Windows OS that will support
latest processors." Guess MS is tired of supporting 30 years of hardware with
each OS release. Hopefully that'll free them up a bit to do more interesting
stuff.

~~~
infodroid
It is strange that most of the news sites currently covering the story have
misleading or ambiguous headlines:

 _Microsoft made 'em do it: The latest Kaby Lake, Zen chips will support only
Windows 10 (PCWorld)_

 _Windows 10 Or Else? Intel 's New 'Kaby Lake' Chip Won't Support Windows 7, 8
(Forbes)_

 _Intel 's Kaby Lake and AMD's Zen processors will only support Windows 10 (PC
Gamer)_

 _From this point forward, all Intel and AMD CPUs are Windows 10-only
(ExtremeTech)_

 _Intel 's latest CPUs will only support Windows 10 (TechRadar)_

~~~
frik
Windows 10 isn't very popular, and that is good. No other operating system is
as hostile to the users privacy, and certainly no desktop operating system
where everyone stores many private files. And not just personal files, but
think of all the doctors offices, lawyers - which makes Win10 illegal to use
in many countries, as it transfers automatically your key strokes, microphone
samples, screenshots, search history, application list, hardware configuration
and what not else that god forbids to dozens of domains that have not even
Microsoft in it's name. And the domains and IPs ate whitelisted in the signed
64-bit kernel mode part of Win10 network layer. Good night, no work around
possible. Except you carry a hardware firewall around attached to your laptop.
So it's good that the "free" (free to exchange for a Win7/8 license dongled to
one mainboard) Win10 failed all expectations and got little uptake. Most
companies are still on Win7 and all literated users too beside some foolished
fanboys/early adopters/noobs. Many reverted back to Win7 after the got Win10
tricked "by accident". XBoxOne failed spectacular too being far far behind PS4
and even WiiU sales. And WinMobile/Phone 10 is dead too, with as little as
0.6% global market share. If I would be an investor, I would fire this failed
CEO and some of his top managers incl PR department and restore and rebrand
some of their former good products.

~~~
hiram112
Yep. I realized today that in my office of about 30 employees, there are about
2 windows machines, 2 devs running Linux, and the rest running MacBooks.

All of our servers are CentOS on AWS.

Email is Gmail enterprise.

We use a dozen different languages and frameworks, but no dot Net, no Visual
Studio to be seen.

And most of us now collaborate with Google docs or just markdown / Confluence
/ Slack. The only ones using MS office are a few of the managers over the age
of 50...

~~~
njharman
Sure, me too except zero windows. but Microsoft has realized going after
30person offices is not lucrative compared to 30,000person companies and
government depts.

------
hsivonen
To get an idea of what kind of grief arises from a legacy kernel on
significantly newer hardware: XP doesn't know how to save and restore AVX
register state across context switches. The cpuid instruction doesn't look at
the OS, so AVX is detected as being available, but it doesn't work right.
(This has been an actual problem for crypto code in Firefox.)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
XP doesn't natively support hard disks with non-512-byte sectors, leading to
performance degradation (and possibly more wear?) on modern, higher-capacity
hard drives which use 4096-byte sectors and have to emulate 512-byte sectors
for Windows XP's sake.

~~~
brassic
Vanilla Windows 7 doesn't support 4K sectors either.

I discovered this when I unthinkingly replaced my laptop's failing disk with a
4K disk. Windows 7 installed itself from the recovery DVD, but would blue
screen on the first reboot.

------
delish
In HN, the headline currently reads:

    
    
         Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10 and Linux, BSD, OS X
    

But on thereg it reads:

    
    
        Latest Intel, AMD chips will only run Windows 10... and Linux, BSD, OS X
    

The ellipsis implies that Intel's and AMD's chips run other OSes too. In fact,
according to thereg, they'll run "homebrew kernels", which I'm glad for. I
don't want to be limited to Windows and Unix-derivatives. I agree with
commenter jcbeard that the headline should be changed to "Windows 10 is the
only Windows OS that will support latest processors", or something similar.

~~~
random55643
Lol, the ellipsis means... pause.

~~~
theossuary
Lol, the ellipsis can also mean... information is left out.

------
phire
Windows 7 is now in extended support. Microsoft are 100% within their rights
to not support the new CPUs on it.

But not adding Zen and Kaby Lake support to windows 8.1 is a little weird, it
still has 16 months of mainstream support.

------
dingo_bat
After having used windows 10 for about a year, I feel confident in saying that
if you don't want to use Windows 10, it is better to switch to Linux or
something else you like, than using clearly inferior versions of windows. Most
people want to stick with 7 just because of nostalgia, and it's good that
intel is cutting them off.

~~~
OSButler
I have a unix based system for work and am using a Windows 10 PC solely for
gaming purposes. Win10 makes it incredibly difficult to try and trim down your
Windows installation to its bare minimum, so that the disk, cpu, and network
activity won't affect your gaming experience.

Then there's the forced update system, which allows you to define a time
interval where it won't automatically install updates, but it can't be set to
more than a 12hs window. It just feels like an OS that thinks it knows what's
best for you, but it actually results in an inferior experience compared to
the previous versions due to its limited configurability.

I haven't played around with the registry and internals that much since
Win'95, just because it adds all this unneeded overhead without any option to
remove it from within its own settings.

Don't get me wrong, it certainly works and I'm getting used to all its new
features and changes, but Win10 makes it really hard to optimize it to your
specific needs for seemingly unnecessary reasons, so I can understand why
people want to stick to their Win7 or even Win8 installs.

~~~
eropple
_> Win10 makes it incredibly difficult to try and trim down your Windows
installation to its bare minimum, so that the disk, cpu, and network activity
won't affect your gaming experience._

You are laboring under some really weird assumptions from the jump. Namely
that you have to "trim down" anything at all. My Windows desktop is almost
exclusively for games (occasionally a little C#). The only changes from the
default settings I made is to use a local account instead of a Microsoft
account, fiddle with the times for Windows Update

When I am idle, the machine is idle. There is no unnecessary disk activity
(there is _indexing_ , but I want that and the switch is in the exact same
place it's been since XP). There is negligible CPU usage. There is no network
activity unless Steam decides to do something in the background.

This is the future. We're in it. And if you are buying reasonably new
hardware, stuff really just works.

~~~
OSButler
Except when it doesn't.

My Win10 install was showing a constant 100% disk usage right after upgrading
from Win8.1. I read online that it can be caused by Windows search indexing
all the files, so I simply left it running. After 2 days I had enough, stopped
all the search related services, and disabled them where possible. Then the
Cortana update got released and the exact same thing happened again with
search processes taking up all the available disk I/O.

Network speed was also an issue where Win10 kept on downloading updates while
the PC was in heavy use instead of doing so when in idle status. That's when I
found out about above mentioned 12hs update window, where it kept on
downloading stuff in the background whenever I had a late/early gaming
session.

CPU usage was not as bad as the disk usage issues, in my case, but there are
the occasional spikes from Windows processes even when in idle status.

That's why I had to start looking into options in regards to trimming down
Windows to its bare minimum features, as the system was barely usable with its
constant disk usage spikes.

PC configurations differ, so of course your milage may vary. Just from my own
personal experience I know people on both ends of the spectrum, where
everything just worked for them, or it was so bad that it rendered their PC
useless and they went back to their previous Windows version. In my case I
just had to figure out how to prevent Windows from doing certain tasks that
would end up having a noticeable effect on the system performance.

~~~
doublerebel
As a DJ, windows 8 touch was actually a godsend because I could give up the
keyboard and just use the screen in the dark. Win 8 had a number of services
to turn off in order to reclaim CPU, memory, and disk (necessary for real-time
live shows with no glitches), but it was manageable.

Win10 refuses to stop updates, the antivirus (defender), turning off cortana
is a mess, it even forces reboots as early as every 12 hours. Completely
unusable for a professional. I'll have to upgrade to win 10 pro, and even then
they don't make it easy, I have to edit the group policy.

This is nuts for anyone in pro audio. Even though I have thousands invested in
Windows compatible software and hardware, I'm seriously considering switching
to osx. Windows touch has no equivalent, this is an awesome underrated
opportunity and they are blowing it.

~~~
eropple
Granted, I just dabble in audio, but I'm surprised you're using Windows in the
first place. Fully anecdotal, of course, but everybody I know runs OS X with
one or another setup (Live or Logic, depending). I do audio more for podcasts
and the occasional composition and Logic Remote on my iPad (an old iPad 2) is
a really solid touch surface with surprisingly low latency.

~~~
doublerebel
iPad only has toy DJ apps, it doesn't allow remote playlist control or really
anything useful that compares to having the full OS as a touchscreen.

Also the iPad is more fragile, twice as expensive, and has a fraction of the
storage for audio, compared to my Asus ultrabook. I only use the iPad in the
studio.

It's much cheaper to get started on Windows, the plugins and programs are vast
and often free compared to the Mac equivalent. The majority of my stuff also
works on Mac but I'd have to relearn my workflow.

I do have a Mac but using it feels like I'm in the office compared to Windows
touch experience. As an app dev I'm always trying to push the boundaries in
music interfaces.

~~~
eropple
To clarify: the iPad acts as an interface to the DAW, not as a DAW itself.
Either Logic Remote or the OSC-based equivalents are really nice ways to drive
applications (touch-based mixers, etc.).

~~~
doublerebel
Right, I use several of the controller apps myself and send OSC or MIDI. It is
a complex, less intuitive, more fragile, and less useful setup than having one
machine that can do everything with touch. In the studio, where nothing
changes, this is less of a problem.

------
pavlov
When the AMD Opteron came out in 2003, did Windows 95 run on it? I don't think
so.

Windows 7 is seven years old. It's just a reality that commercial software
that old doesn't get support, unless you're an enterprise customer willing to
pay for the privilege.

~~~
static_noise
Then should we consider Windows or other commerical software for anything
designed to outlast a 5 year period?

~~~
lagadu
What's the alternative? Old MacOS versions also don't support newer hardware,
old Linux kernels neither. By your reasoning, no operating system should ever
be considered for anything designed to outlast a 7 year period (which is
windows' 7 age).

~~~
creshal
> Old MacOS versions also don't support newer hardware

Which is why nobody uses MacOS in production for anything but end user
devices.

> old Linux kernels neither

They do. All major enterprise distributions backport drivers exactly for that
reason – and unlike with Windows, you can update the kernel in place without
having to touch any other part of your software stack. Your software won't
care whether it's running on top of Linux 2.4 or 4.2, but it will care whether
it's running on Windows 7 or Windows 10.

------
eximius
All I want is an operating system to game on that doesn't spy on me and
advertise to me and force me to do things or disallow me to do what I want. I
sure hope WINE has gotten better in the past couple years because I refuse to
put up with this Windows 10 bullshit.

~~~
immigrantsheep
Wine and linux drivers will never be good enough to play games. You might as
well install windows 7 in a vritual machine. And this whole thing about
spying... you can install O&O ShutUp10 which helps a lot but on the other
hand, if you're on the internet, chances are everything is spying on
everything. Google is spying on you, facebook is spying on you. Unless you're
only using TOR and chat clients with end to end encryption, if someone wants
to spy on you, they will. Don't get me wrong, I don't condone Microsoft for
this (hence the o&o comment) just that there are other players here as well.

On the other hand, being a user of all three OSes I could complain about all
three of them.

~~~
eximius
I'll look into that.

I minimize the usage of my windows machine usage to steam and gmail and a
handful of gaming websites. Nothing out of the ordinary is spying on me. But
I'm far more concerned by my OS spying on me than whatever details some JS can
pick up. Hell, I have my ext4 fs mounted on windows. In Windows 10, that means
it can index and beam that info back to the mothership.

~~~
immigrantsheep
Coming from a semi-security IT background I always assume there are forces out
there who see everything (in the great scheme of internet things). It doesn't
make it better any way. Just helps me cope with how everything is screwed up
these days.

------
sandworm101
When microsoft is done shooting off its own feet, I've got a bridge to sell
them.

But I'm all for win10 atm. I just bought a new dirt-cheap netbook. The push
for Win10 meant that even the cheapest of netbooks requires the muscle to run
win10. The fact that mine never even booted into that OS is beside the point.
Rather than a machine that runs win10 poorly, I've now got a very nice little
linux mint box ... and a pile of Win10-related stickers.

------
cm2187
But new x86 chips are backward compatible. What will happen if I install
windows 7? Will Microsoft introduce a kill switch or am I just not going to
take advantage of the new features?

~~~
kyriakos
it will work just fine, you just won't get support from Microsoft and it
Windows 7 will not use any of the newer processor features.

~~~
cm2187
Reading another article I wonder if the chipset won't be more of a problem.
Like USB drivers.

~~~
kyriakos
maybe you are right about Windows 7, but Windows 8/8.1 has the same driver
model with Windows 10 so at least that won't be an issue. now why would anyone
want to run Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 10 is unclear to me.

~~~
cm2187
Agree. If they were making an adware and spyware free version of Windows 10, I
would be more than happy to upgrade.

I know Windows 10 enterprise is adware/spyware free, but as an individual I
have no idea of how to get one.

~~~
lagadu
MSDN subscription.

~~~
cm2187
Isn't there a limit on how many licenses I can get? I have a few laptops and
VMs around, it can go up pretty quickly.

~~~
lagadu
No limits on the amount of devices, though IIRC after using 10 different keys
(for each version) you have to ask for a refresh.

To be honest I'm also unsure on the details of how you can use the OSs you get
from the MSDN license.

edit: I checked my subscription, for enterprise editions you get 2 multiple
activation keys. I've no idea how many activations these keys allow. It's
worth noting that you get two for regular enterprise, 2 for the N edition and
2 more for the LTSB version.

edit2: nevermind! Turns out that if you want to stay 100% legal the msdn
subscription is pretty restrictive:

> Many Visual Studio subscribers use a computer for mixed use—both design,
> development, testing, and demonstration of your programs (the use allowed
> under the Visual Studio subscription license) and some other use. Using the
> software in any other way, such as for doing email, playing games, or
> editing a document is another use and is not covered by the Visual Studio
> subscription license. When this happens, the underlying operating system
> must also be licensed normally by purchasing a regular copy of Windows such
> as the one that came with a new OEM PC.

~~~
cm2187
I think I'll probably get one. Everything I do is kind of experimental and
hacky (home DIY rather than professional programmer). So none of what I do
really leaves testing!

------
mythz
> Why is Microsoft doing this?

> Windows 10 must succeed at all costs. It's Windows 10 or bust. If you're
> buying a flash new machine, what a superb way for Microsoft to shoehorn its
> latest operating system onto it; that'll really help inflate its usage
> numbers.

~~~
ivanca
Fuck Microsoft, I been using Windows all my life but if I could jump to any
other operative system with games and software support I would do it in a
heartbeat.

------
ngold
So loading win 7 ahould be no problem, it just won't be supported any longer?

~~~
vidyesh
From the article

> Microsoft holding back support is the xHCI USB controller in sixth-
> generation Skylake and seventh-generation Kaby Lake: Windows 7 doesn't
> support that USB hardware, so installing the operating system from a USB
> stick using those chips is tricky. Intel provides xHCI drivers for Windows 7
> once it's up and running.

~~~
kijin
AFAIK, consumer editions of Windows 7 never even officially came in a "USB
stick" form factor. It has always been on a DVD.

So the more salient question would be: is it possible to plug in a USB
external ODD to a Kaby Lake laptop, pop the Windows 7 DVD in it, and install
from it? Or is it just as "tricky" as installing from a USB stick?

~~~
nikanj
How would the usb ODD work without a working usb controller?

~~~
nine_k
How can one _boot_ from an USB DVD then, sans an OS?

~~~
userbinator
I don't know what the newer systems do, but on older ones that had USB boot
support, the BIOS has a basic USB driver that lets even DOS apps access
CD/DVD/USB media via the traditional INT 13H interface.

------
milesf
Won't happen. Microsoft has made threats like this before, and backed off at
the last minute.

~~~
rincebrain
I wouldn't take that bet this time. Microsoft's shown an aggressive
willingness to break anything that gets in the way of Windows 10.

~~~
milesf
No, they are too beholden to large corporations who will not be railroaded
into using an OS they don't need or cannot use for compatibility reasons. It
may take some time, but eventually Microsoft will capitulate. They always
capitulate. There's no sane business reason not to.

------
ihsw
Will the next Intel & AMD chips support Windows 10, or will we see a similar
planned-obsolescence dance again?

I'm asking to see whether this is part of a larger trend where compatibility
is falling by the wayside or whether this is an isolated incident to kick the
world up to modernity, and I am fully aware that it is difficult to predict
the future.

IMO Windows 10 really is an atrocious piece of software and forcing it onto
people could backfire.

------
userbinator
_One example of Microsoft holding back support is the xHCI USB controller in
sixth-generation Skylake and seventh-generation Kaby Lake: Windows 7 doesn 't
support that USB hardware, so installing the operating system from a USB stick
using those chips is tricky. Intel provides xHCI drivers for Windows 7 once
it's up and running._

As far as I know, the xHCI spec is freely available, and so are the DDKs that
let you write your own drivers (or perhaps port them from Linux), so I don't
see anything stopping the enthusiast community from doing that, besides maybe
(currently trivially circumventable, but who knows...) driver signing, and if
my past predictions are any indication, that will likely happen.

Ironically, there are already xHCI drivers for _DOS_ :
[http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/](http://www.georgpotthast.de/usb/)

------
omarforgotpwd
What a pain in the ass for people doing OS compatibility testing

~~~
cwyers
Use a VM.

~~~
LeoPanthera
Would this work? Doesn't a VM pass the CPU directly through to the client OS?

~~~
oakwhiz
In a VM the hardware is fake, and usually works on most OSes. The real
hardware is the problem here, because it only has official drivers for Windows
10. The CPU is fine. Using a VM makes it more difficult to use some features
of real hardware, even if it is still technically possible to pass real
hardware into a VM. It's a usability issue.

What people want is to have their favorite OS or OSes on the newest hardware.
But sometimes the hardware and OS makers collude to make older tech obsolete.

------
xbmcuser
It is the other way around Microsoft wont support Windows 8.1 and older on
newer processors.

------
static_noise
Does this mean

a) older Windows versions will not run at all on those chips?

b) older Windows versions will still run but cause some problems?

c) older Windows versions will run without problems or performance impediment
compared to old chips but some new features are not supported?

d) everything will work just as well but when problems occur Microsoft won't
provide official support?

~~~
lagadu
It means it's untested. In reality it should be option d) but they're saying
that if a) to c) eventually happen then you were warned. Also don't ever
expect chipset drivers for those OSs.

------
CommanderData
Cortana will force herself inside your hardware whether your willing or
unwilling.

This is an interesting move and I wonder if these companies will back track
under pressure from corporate. Is this just a matter of a few drivers built by
AMD, Intel or Microsoft? I don't know.

------
snorrah
Bit of a tangent, but that was a surprisingly readable article for
TheRegister. They seemed very clickbaity with CAPITAL LETTER WORDS scattered
around not so long ago. Are they now back to this more reasonable style in
general or was this a fluke ?

------
IANAD
>> Microsoft loves Linux! Right?

> Right.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm?

~~~
pbz
Your sensor is indeed properly calibrated; carry on.

------
charonn0
All I'm reading is that my next upgrade will see me move to Linux full time.

------
graycat
And what about Windows Server?

------
jsolson
Seems like there's a market for a tiny hypervisor.

------
vidyesh
Fix the title please, lets not bring clickbaits on HN.

Newest Intel & AMD chips will not work with any Windows version below 10.

~~~
tomsmeding
It's practically the title of the actual article.

