Today, a shocking announcement at the Microsoft Support web site came to our attention. It brought sad news for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 users. If you are running these operating systems, the Redmond software giant may leave you without updates even if your PC has drivers available!
- Intel seventh (7th)-generation processors (Kaby Lake) or later
- AMD "Bristol Ridge" (Seventh generation) or newer
- Qualcomm "8996"
If your PC has any of these CPUs and you have Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 installed, Windows Update will not work. This is irrespective of the fact that drivers may be available for your combination of hardware.
The Windows Update service will report the following:
Unsupported Hardware
Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows and you won’t receive updates.
It will appear when you scan or download updates using the Windows Update service.
The Windows Update window will keep showing the following message:
Windows could not search for new updates
An error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer.
Error(s) found:
Code 80240037 Windows Update encountered an unknown error.
This is quite a disappointing move from Microsoft. Plenty of hardware vendors still support Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 and provide drivers for all the modern hardware for them.
Microsoft explains this as follows:
Windows 10 is the only Windows version that is supported on the following processor generations ...
Because of how this support policy is implemented, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 devices that have a seventh generation or a later generation processor may no longer be able to scan or download updates through Windows Update or Microsoft Update.
The only recommendation given by Microsoft is to upgrade your operating system from Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 to Windows 10.
Well, we all know that Microsoft wants everyone using Windows 10 whether the user likes it or not. They have started dropping support in one way or the other for previous versions of Windows faster than ever. With Windows 10, nobody knows how far Microsoft can go as it is the most aggressively pushed version of the operating system. Despite support from the hardware vendor, the software vendor is refusing to support their own operating systems so that everyone will move to Windows 10.
This campaign for pushing customers to the latest OS is extremely aggressive, so I won't be surprised if one day they break Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 in more ways intentionally.
Source: Microsoft Support.
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Its NOT aggressive push.. its TERRORISM by Microsoft and for this crime the entire Bord of Microsoft should be aggressively punished
When you use the word terrorism in reference to the update policy of a software company, you cheapen the meaning of the word when using against actual terrorism. I don’t like this move by Microsoft either but for goodness sake, keep your head on straight and your blood pressure down, there are far more serious issues in life.
It looks like that Microsoft indeed failed with their latest OS when talking about attracting new customers. We’ll see what is awaiting us in the future. May it be that people would get so upset with Windows that usage rate of them would start to drop significantly? Probably there won’t be such dramatic results but some hardcore Windows XP / 7 lovers may switch to alternative operating systems.
“The only recommendation given by Microsoft is to upgrade your operating system from Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 to Windows 10.” Not really the only one. You can always downgrade the processor if you really want to stay on 7/8.1.
Why’d you even buy a more expensive computer then if you can only partially benefit from it and need to spend additional money.
I agree. I’m just saying if they really want to run an old OS then they could just run an old CPU. I’m quite happy with staying new and current. No issues with W10 here.
Not surprising. This was announced ages ago.
I don’t trust Microsoft to be able to implement this so that it doesn’t break Windows Update for a much larger segment of users ie everyone, perhaps!
I’m sure some leading light in the tweaking community could provide a workaround before long, anyway.
Sadly, I’m beyond being shocked. W10 is now just an elaborate version of an ad supported free cellphone app that isn’t in most cases free. The user experience is completely irrelevant but it’s the new business model and they are keen to shut down the old and obsolete products which were merely intended to be sold and used rather than making the user the product. A permanent income stream is infinitely more appealing and since people will actually pay for it, they probably believe themselves to be geniuses at Microsoft. By pay, of course it’s OEMs not end users but still, it should be free to reflect its low value and poor usability for anything of consequence. The sooner the decently designed older products are gone, the less chance of anyone being able to compare them to the perpetual beta not-really-OS now being pushed so hard.
They have pulled out all the stops and they are shameless, so nothing is likely to surprise me any more, unless of course they change direction back to sanity. That would shock me in the nicest way.
I’m so sick of Microsoft and their Windows 10 BS. I always disliked Windows 10 since build 9926 and at this point, I’m even settling in Windows 8 instead but I also prefer Windows 7.
I wonder if this would count as a breach of contract by Microsoft because there are still a few years left for how long Microsoft originally said they would service Windows 7 and 8. There a number of cases where a person needs to upgrade their motherboard and CPU to continue using the operating system and Microsoft is now backtracking on their original agreement.
Is this true for Windows XP?
Is this legal? Can Microsoft be sued with a class action lawsuit?
And even if it is legal, it is clearly unethical. I don’t see why anyone would trust Microsoft anymore.
“The only recommendation given by Microsoft is to upgrade your operating system from Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 to Windows 10.”
Obviously. The other option would be to use something else, like Linux.