Microsoft has made good on its plans to stop all support for Ryzen and Kaby Lake owners running any OS but Windows 10. Going forward, using one of these chips in Windows 7 or 8.1 will prevent you from downloading any security or software updates in Windows Update.<\/b>
Last month, we covered news that Microsoft had introduced a KB update that would break Windows Update when running on Kaby Lake or Ryzen hardware from AMD. What was less clear is when the company would actually switch that capability on. Now we know \u2014 they did it yesterday.
Ars Technica reports that as of now, Microsoft detects Ryzen or Kaby Lake CPUs running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 and returns the following message:
Microsoft\u2019s philosophy is that because Kaby Lake and Ryzen contain low-level improvements unsupported on previous operating systems, as well as peripherals that didn\u2019t exist when Windows 7 was created, it makes sense to push people towards the latest version of the operating system. To a certain extent, I agree with this. We\u2019ve already seen how AMD\u2019s Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 systems can have trouble under Windows 10, because W10 doesn\u2019t natively understand the SenseMI technology that AMD\u2019s newest processors use to adjust their own clock speeds under load. Drivers and UEFI updates are on the way to improve power management, but it can be difficult to shoehorn these capabilities into older operating systems that may not offer the same degree of fine-grained control.
This isn\u2019t even the first time we\u2019ve seen a Microsoft OS fail to run on modern hardware because modern chips are faster than the OS expects, or have capabilities the OS doesn\u2019t know how to drive. That said, there are two things that set this situation apart from any other. First, Microsoft is deliberately killing Windows compatibility by enforcing a software lockout, as opposed to an old OS simply not working properly on new hardware because it was never updated to do so. Second, instead of throwing the problem off on hardware OEMs and driver authors to fix (for example, leaving it up to a hardware vendor to decide whether to support USB 3.0 in Windows 7, or to build NVMe drivers for that operating system), MS is short-circuiting support altogether.
Any company that builds software eventually has to decide when it makes sense to stop supporting certain versions. This isn\u2019t unique to Windows \u2014 Apple, Linux distros, and Android all contain their own methods of dealing with support, typically by only offering it for a limited time. But that\u2019s not really what Microsoft is doing here. Windows 7 is still supposed to be receiving security patches through 2020, while Windows 8.1 is still in mainstream support through January 9, 2018:
What Microsoft is doing here is cutting off Windows 7 security support almost three years early (if you own a new CPU) and killing Windows 8.1 security updates nearly six years earlier than it ever has before for prior versions of the OS. It\u2019s a ridiculous, consumer-hostile move with no justifiable reason beyond \u201cMicrosoft doesn\u2019t want to support older operating systems through their previously stated support lifetimes, so screw you.\u201d Even Skylake support is questionable \u2014 some OEMs got their Skylake systems supported, but many others didn\u2019t. It\u2019s not clear how whitebox or home-built systems are treated either \u2014 if you have a Skylake rig, please let us know if you can continue downloading updates for it.
Probably, but none of them are what you\u2019d call convenient. You might be able to create a Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 installation image with the latest security and feature updates. You still won\u2019t be able to update, but at least you\u2019ll have all of the updated software and security fixes current to the day you install the operating system. Alternately, if you have a second system that\u2019s built on a similar CPU or platform, you may be able to install your HDD or SSD into that rig, boot the OS up, and then patch it. The disadvantage to this is that you\u2019ll be stuck moving your OS drive into another computer on a regular basis.
There\u2019s a third possibility: Enterprising users may wind up distributing home-rolled \u201cservice packs\u201d with cracked installers to update a system. This might seem as if it fixes the problem altogether, and the Windows user community has certainly rallied before to create alternate OS versions or unofficial service packs. The problem is, there are always cases where Microsoft doesn\u2019t give you a patch because your system, specifically, doesn\u2019t need it. Installing OS updates that your system doesn\u2019t need can be as problematic as installing those it does. Cracked, unofficial service packs are also a lovely way to infect machines with malware.
Back in the days of Windows XP, Microsoft had a simple solution to the problem of pirated \/ unregistered versions of the operating system. It would refuse to allow you to download various goodies or applications, but made the core security components of Windows available to everyone, even if you weren\u2019t running a registered version of the operating system. Microsoft\u2019s reasoned, correctly, that it was more important to push security updates out to users than it was to punish people who had stolen the OS. Unauthorized computers can still be part of a botnet or security breach, after all.
The company seems to have reversed that calculus, and it\u2019s not hard to see why. Back in the Windows XP days, most people still bought new computers every 3-5 years. Today, manufacturers talk about 7-10 year product cycles \u2014 meaning that the number of computers running older versions of its operating systems has grown over time, though Windows 10 did push back a bit against that trend during its first year of life. Microsoft has decided that the only way to truly secure the solution is to push everyone towards Windows 10 and damn the consequences. Enthusiasts will find solutions to these problems \u2014 but they won\u2019t likely be as robust as MS just acknowledging the need to keep systems as secure as possible, and not to put its own preferences ahead of the practical need of millions of users.
Also, based on these actions, we\u2019re calling \u201cMainstream support\u201d a lie. Microsoft clearly doesn\u2019t have a \u201cMainstream support\u201d mode anymore. A company that reserves the right to unilaterally tear up previous agreements that may have influenced how and when you bought your operating system license has no right to declare itself in \u201csupport\u201d of anything except its own bottom line.<\/p>\n