Computers What does “only supported on Windows 10” mean for chips?

[Joe]

What does "only supported on Windows 10" mean for chips? - gHacks Tech News

Whose idea was it to limit support for future generations of Intel and AMD chips to Windows 10? We don't know the answer to that, but the finger seems to point to Microsoft.

Microsoft revealed in January of this year that the next generation of silicon chips would only by supported by Windows 10, the company's new operating system.

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The change affects consumers and businesses alike. Consumers are limited by it, as they no longer have the choice to build a Windows PC running Windows 7 or 8.1 using one of the newer chips.

Businesses are even more affected by it than consumers, as most would not want to run unsupported hardware on previous versions of Windows.

Actually, it is unclear right now what would happen if one would try to run a Windows 7 or 8.1 computer with one of the new chips. The reason for this is simple: availability. The chips are not available yet which means that no one tried to install previous versions of Windows on a computer running these new chips.

Microsoft failed to reveal what would happen if users would try to run new unsupported chips on old versions of Windows. Guesses range from "it would work" to "it would likely crash" or "not even install".

Third-party drivers could be created to fill the gap, but that would take time and it would only benefit home users but not businesses, as they are unlikely to run third-party drivers that are not official and not supported.

We will know more once AMD and Intel release their first Zen and Kaby Lake chips, but before then, it is unknown territory.

 

[Second Summer]

Yes, it's not like anyone would ever consider running anything but Windows on Intel chips, obviously ....!

 

[Jeremy]

I think you're reading into it wrong IS. I don't think this has anything to do with, nor does this have any affect on operating systems such as Linux, BSD, etc. It is all about Microsoft herding their own customers off of Windows 7/8.1. There's a reason for it that will affect Microsoft's bottom line. It will be in form of a subscription service that everyone who uses Windows 10 will have to pay an annual fee for in order to get updates to the operating system. The success of this is gauged by as many people being on the platform as possible. I mean, think about it.... A customer pays $100 - $129 OEM, or $200'ish retail box for a Windows OS once every 5 years versus every user on the platform having to pay lets say $45 a year for the latest digital updates. Um yeah, that's going to be major, if I were them I'd be trying to use every trick in the book to get my customers onto 10 before that launches too.