Microsoft has without prior notice, negated the support status for older versions of Windows on the latest PC hardware.
The US-based technology company confirmed that it will not offer backwards compatibility for its Windows operating system as new chips are released. Microsoft announced that computers based on newer chips from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm will need to upgrade to Windows 10 to be guaranteed continued updates.
Machines with Intel’s Skylake design, released late last year, Intel’s Kabylake family, due before 2017, AMD’s Bristol Ridge, due this year, and Qualcomm’s 8996/Snapdragon 820 architecture require Windows 10 to ensure continued support. Only certain Skylake based machines will be able to run Windows 7 and 8.1 (officially) and that too till 17 July 2017.
The “Get Windows 10” app will not show up for companies that plan to manage updates on their own.
Windows 10 has been downloaded on more than 200 million devices so far and Microsoft is pushing to hit the 1 billion mark by 2019. The corporation also recently revealed that it would be pushing Get Windows 10 messages to a broader range of Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs, including network setups commonly used by small businesses.
On Microsoft’s TechNet blog, the Redmond group said it will be rolling out the “Get Windows 10” app to additional devices in the U.S. later this month for devices that license Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro. The “Get Windows 10” app will also be added to devices that are configured to receive updates directly from the Windows Update service and are joined to an Active Directory domain.
“Like consumers, small businesses and organizations will soon be able to receive notifications about the upgrade and then directly upgrade to Windows 10 through an easy-to-use interface right from the system tray on their Windows 7 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro PC,” said Microsoft in a blog post.
