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

I read an article this week headlined: "The latest Kaby Lake, Zen chips will support only Windows 10." It claimed Intel and AMD's new processors are "officially supported only by Microsoft’s Windows 10." This can't be true? What about Linux? Journalists, right? The short answer is Intel's Kaby Lake aka its seventh-generation …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Basically, for now, don't buy an Intel seventh-generation Core nor an AMD Zen CPU if you want to keep running Windows 7 or 8.1."

    Bother! I was thinking about going for an tech refresh with Intel seventh generation hardware to use up my spare W7 licences. No way will I consider being forced into W10.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Don't forget the DRM

      Let it not be forgotten that Intel has lovingly baked DRM into said 7th gen chips - for the ease of use and reliability that all users crave, right ?

      Not compatible with Win 7 ? Not a problem here - I'm in the process of transitioning to Linux anyway.

      And without DRM if at all possible.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: Not compatible?

        Weasel speak:

        "Windows 10 is your only supported option" != "Only Windows 10 version of windows works / compatible"

        i.e. the only option MS will "support" is Windows 10.

        Well, in nearly 20 years of doing Windows stuff, the only MS support was Technet or more expensive MSDN. Pretty poor after Server 2003, because, well, Ribbon, Aero, etc are stupid.

        Migrated to Linux.

        Any new hardware ongoing will be Linux, Android or BSD or something Chinese, certainly not Win 10.

    2. Jonathan 27

      Then just buy Sky Lake instead, there is nearly no performance difference.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Then just buy Sky Lake instead, there is nearly no performance difference.

        How long do you think Intel we keep those processors available for?

        1. John 104

          @Charlie Clark

          How long do you think Intel we keep those processors available for

          You'll be able to buy systems on these chips for years. Look around online and see how many discounted Broadwell systems are out there. Not really an issue if you are resourceful.

        2. Updraft102

          How long do you think Intel we keep those processors available for?

          Considering that Sandy Bridge, Nehalem, Core 2, etc., are still readily available in the secondary market, I would say it's not a problem.

      2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

        @ Jonathan 27

        What makes you think that I haven't already bought a SkyLake CPU ?

        Because I have. With 32GB RAM and 5TB of hard disk space.

        I've had it for a year now. I'm very happy with it, and looking forward to seeing what Mint will make of it.

        1. Scoular

          Re: @ Jonathan 27

          Mint will work just fine, I have had it running on similar hardware for a year.

          No Win 10 crap thanks, bye bye MS.

    3. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Another monopoly move from MS that ends up shooting them solidly in the foot.

      I have zero interest in Win10 at this time and forcing me to go with 10 on a purchase of Zen will simply result in my not buying Zen. My Win 7 games PC is working just fine thank you very much. As soon as my Steam library is supported on Linux, then I'll drop Win 7 forever.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      $10 says Intel backs up the bus and supports Windows 7 after MSFT can't get any companies to pay a bunch of cash for $0 in value add to move to Windows 10.

      Also, who cares? Outside of Redmond's bubble, the entire world is moving towards lightweight end user devices (PC or otherwise... the whole cloud story). For instance, Google is releasing just killer business class PCs right now running Chrome OS on Intel m core processor. m core basically trades unnecessary compute power that 99% of users will never touch (the i core series) for better battery life. That is a good trade off for 99% of people. Compute intensive apps should run on a server. I have the new HP Chromebook 13 and so Intel and Microsoft can go right ahead and do whatever they want with the i series.... Funny that MSFT thinks this is really going to scare people into buying Windows 10. "You are not going to be able to get the i core!" So what, giant PC chips were cool in the 90s, not so important since the internet came around. You can easily run any PC app under the sun on an m series chip... you can likely get the job done on an ARM chip.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        -killer business class PCs

        -running Chrome OS

        Yeah, you can only pick one of those.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          I have a Toshiba Chromebook with a HD display that chroots to Ubuntu in about 3 seconds thanks to Crouton.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "killer business class PCs

          -running Chrome OS

          Yeah, you can only pick one of those"

          Nonsense. Chrome, by design, will always be more secure than Windows. Chrome requires far less management (if you are an IT admin, you can manage a fleet of thousands and all the data access on Chome from a single counsel... as they are running all critical services on the server, where critical services belong). It isn't as good as Windows for business, it is much better.... Also, throw in that it is a free OS with Google support. If you are a large business, that is millions a year in savings. Thick client is from the 90s, as is paying for OSs.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Farming out compute intensive processes?

        Are we back in the days of Mainframes now, or just terminal servers and thin clients? How long until security and bandwidth concerns push us back onto only using machines we actually control?!

        I have a PC. I can do freakin' anything with it, and it'll continue working long after your cloud services have shut down.

        1. Danny 14

          Re: Farming out compute intensive processes?

          So usb installation is tricky? What about pxe installation? DVD? Sounds like a crock of shite to me.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Farming out compute intensive processes?

          "Are we back in the days of Mainframes now, or just terminal servers and thin clients? How long until security and bandwidth concerns push us back onto only using machines we actually control?!"

          What? Security concerns? Mainframes are far more secure than PCs or a PC architecture. It isn't even close. I believe the IBM mainframe has not yet been hacked (50 something years since introduction). Just think about it. What is more secure? One incredibly well guarded server, purpose built for maximum security... or a thousands PCs being left on the table at Starbucks or floating around the office? Say nothing about the superiority of IBM z/OS (or Unix derivative) OSs to Windows.... The whole cloud security concern doesn't make much sense either. Who is likely going to do a better job? Google or AWS with an army of top notch security engineers, huge amounts of cash to spend on security, and every incentive to ensure their customers data is never hacked, or whoever the local business happens to hire for their security position?

          What can you really do with a PC that is not connected to the internet? You can create a spreadsheet offline (which you can do with Chromebook as well)... Not much otherwise. Play a game I suppose. It is really a solution in search of a problem for most people though. Most people always have internet access... if they don't have WiFi, they are looking at their phones... not their offline PC.

    5. energystar
      Alien

      Multi-Pass?

      will only run Windows 10 ... and [allowed a multi-pass guest card to] BSD, OS X, LeeLoo

  2. fandom

    On the other hand, even Linux ended up dropping support for 386 CPUs.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon

      As much as this piece of news is irritating and indicative of M$ trying to force more people into Win10, nowhere does it state any kind of parallel to what you just noted.

      No-one is dropping support for older CPU's here.

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      @fandom

      ...will drop support... There. FIFY.

      It's not happened yet, and when it does, mainstream Linux distro's will remain supported in i386 for several years to come, because they will keep the older kernels in their LTS repositories for quite a while (Ubuntu will drop support first in 18.10)

      I estimate that I'll have retired all my i386 boxes way before Ubuntu 18.04 drops out of support in 2022 or 2023.

      1. Tom 7

        Re: @fandom

        And I'd imagine by then A RaspberryPi5 with 8Gig of Ram and 8*4Ghz cores using so little power that you will save money in the first year by retiring your i386 boxen!

      2. GrapeBunch

        Re: @fandom

        Forgive the naive question, but my recollection from the days of 386s and 486s is that the main hurdle to running Linux back then in a 386 or 486 system was RAM. The typical 386 system did not have enough RAM to properly run Linux. So has Linux become slimmer in the ensuing quarter-century?

        Foundations used to solicit the donation of old computers. I was considering such a donation and asked the obvious question. It turned out that the desktop box I was considering to donate was not powerful enough to donate to them. Then I did a double take, because the most powerful computer in the house also was not powerful enough to donate! This is part of the "naive" in my question.

        1. fandom

          Re: @fandom

          "The typical 386 system did not have enough RAM to properly run Linux."

          Not at all since Linux was first developed to run in 386 chips.

          Actually the announcement for the first public release said:

          "It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have "

          Which is kind of funny in hindsight.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @fandom

        "...will drop support... There. FIFY."

        No, i386 got dropped almost 4 years ago. The interrupts are handled differently from later processors and they decided it was a bit too faffy to support.

        Mostly doesn't affect anything because most distros have only supported 586 and above for a long time.

        32 bit x86 - for, internally, Linux calls the architecture x86 - well, a few distros have dropped support for it, but it hasn't gone away yet.

        1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

          Re: @fandom

          OK. I was confusing 386 and 32-bit x86. Sorry.

    3. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

      This isn't the same, and Linux/BSD dropped support for 386s because :

      1) It's too slow

      2) No one is using 386s any more.

      486 support will take longer to disappear, because there's still a fair bit of embedded kit using 486 processors. Anything above a Core processor is usable for modern productivity tasks (i.e word processing), although it'll probably chug for the most advert heavy webpages.

      However, 486 support only applies to the base OS. A number of packages have assumed at least SSE (P3), and browsers have started enforcing SSE2 (P4). For text only, very slow systems are still manageable. Many X utilities seem to assume Qt these days and I suspect a pentium 4 is the minimum usable platform, I tried with slower and it was a bad idea.

      Windows is much more strict with later releases, and running some apps, particularly games, is sometimes tricky. No Man's Sky shipped requiring SSE4.1, which is included in Intel chips from 2007 or later, but not in Phenom 2 chips, the last of which was released in 2011.. That got fixed rapidly.

      1. John Crisp

        "This isn't the same, and Linux/BSD dropped support for 386s because :"

        AFAIAA it is because getting the hardware to build/test is becoming harder/more expensive now and not considered worth the effort

        I could be wrong..... couldn't find the ML post I read on it

      2. Mindbreaker

        386, 486, good grief! Why on Earth are you keeping that junk? Let me guess...you keep using the same toothbrush until the last scraggly tuft falls out.

        1. theOtherJT Silver badge

          386, 486, good grief! Why on Earth are you keeping that junk? Let me guess...you keep using the same toothbrush until the last scraggly tuft falls out.

          Because you find various perfectly servicable industrial machines that have an integrated controller with early 3/486 cpus in them. Nothing wrong with the machine, but you can't update the software any more, and you can't change the controlling machine because it uses some weird proprietary hardware so what to do? If you can put Linux on it chances are you can hack together some working control code, which is a damn sight easier than trying to work out how to get a modern PC to talk to whatever the hell it is.

    4. big_D Silver badge

      They are dropping x86 support, as oposed to 386 support. That means 32-bit versions will no longer be actively developed / supported going forward.

      That means no Linux for 32-bit Atom chips or older hardware. As most Intel processors today are 64-bit, there is less and less need to support 32-bit, although that means that 32-bit processors will be restricted to older distributions with LTS support.

      As for Windows, it doesn't say that it can't / won't run on older versions, just that if there are problems, you are on your own and will have to solve any compatibility or stability problems yourself.

      The biggest problem here is that the "support" for new processors means adding new features and drivers to Windows 7 and 8.x. Windows 7 is in extended support, which means that it only gets security updates. As new features are not security, there are no resources available to implement them.

      If you are a large corporate, buying thousands of PCs with Kaby Lake, then you can probably pay for MS to write the relevant drivers, as a private individual that isn't realistic.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

    Run Windows <whatever> in a VM. But the license doesn't allow that...

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

      >But the license doesn't allow that...

      Does it not? Genuine question.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

        Hmm... it appears you can use Win7 in a VM without contravening the licence. What isn't allowed is using the same Win 7 licence for both the host OS and guest VM.

        - http://superuser.com/questions/25678/how-does-windows-7-licensing-work-for-running-the-os-as-virtual-machines

        - http://blog.superuser.com/2011/04/06/microsoft-licencing-transferring-windows-to-another-computer/

    2. d3vy

      Re: Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

      @Annon.

      You're talking out of your hole.

      There is nothing that stops you using win7 in a VM, You cant use the same Licence for the host and the VM.. but if your setting up the VM to get round not being able to run win7 as the host OS this hardly seems to be an issue.

      The solution to the problem would seem to be to use win10/linux as the host and windows7 in the VM... whether the performance impact of running in a VM makes it worth it is another matter... probably better just to buy an older generation of CPU.

      1. Boothy

        Re: Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

        Would that still work?

        Don't VMs access the CPU (essentially) directly anyway?

        i.e. If your host is a 3rd gen i7, then your VM also see's a 3rd gen i7. All the 'user' can usually do is manage things like how many cores are available to the VM, not what type of CPU the VM gets to see.

        Therefore wouldn't trying to run Win 7 in a VM, on a host that was running on a new CPU, still have the same compatibility issue?

        Genuine question. As my experience with various VM environments (desktop, not server), don't allow you to change the 'type' of CPU available to the VM, they always see whatever the host has installed.

        1. Tim Bates

          Re: Another option (if you really want to stick with Windows)...

          I realise this is old, but Google got me here....

          The answer is yes and no... With modern virtualisation, the guest does basically directly talk to the CPU. But decent virtualisation software does let you limit what CPU is announced to the guest, which usually helps with stuff getting upset with newer cpus.

          KVM/Qemu lets you set the CPU type, and I've had instances where I've had to do that. Not sure if it blocks invalid calls and such, but makes he OS think it's on a 486 or whatever you choose.

          That said... The main trouble seems to be driver support. Virtual video card, USB, netowkr, etc solves that problem.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "They could port over drivers from Linux, of instance."

    Loading GPLv2 licensed drivers from Linux in the Windows kernel, I just can't wait for that to happen.

    1. Tom 38
      Joke

      Re: "They could port over drivers from Linux, of instance."

      Warning: Kernel will become less tainted! Do you wish to continue? [Y/n]

  5. Fenton

    Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

    There is a lot of legacy stuff in x86/x87 to support 16bit/32bit.

    I could see this as a good opportunity to strip all of this crap out to have a pure

    64bit CPU.

    1. Sandtitz Silver badge

      Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

      "I could see this as a good opportunity to strip all of this crap out to have a pure 64bit CPU."

      Then you could replace it with a totally different architecture anyway, since you'd need 64bit software as well. Most software is still 32-bit in whole or partially. The 32-bit subsystem in Windows can be disabled but most software will just stop working / won't install.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

        "I could see this as a good opportunity to strip all of this crap out to have a pure 64bit CPU."

        what, like the Alpha ?

        1. Mage Silver badge

          Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

          Alpha 64 had first 64 bit Windows, NT 4.0!

          Some stuff is actually LESS efficient on 64 only code.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

            Wasn't the Alpha Windows 32-bit, despite CPU capabilities? NT3.1 era, before 4.0 ....

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

              I'm willing to bet Apple is getting pretty close to dropping the 32 bit ISA from the iPhone/iPad SoC. It is only needed now to run apps that haven't been recompiled since before iOS 7 was released and universal apps could be built. Seen in the light of Apple's recent announcement that they will soon start housecleaning apps that haven't been updated in a long time (they haven't specified how long) makes me think that in either fall 2018 with the A11 & iOS 11 or definitely by fall 2019 with the A12 and iOS 12 Apple will:

              1) build that version of iOS 64 bit only

              2) drop support for the remaining 32 bit hardware (iPhone 5 & 5c, and iPad 4 is the only 32 bit hardware iOS 10 supports)

              3) drop non-universal apps from the app store (i.e. those that haven't been built with the new tools that came out with iOS 7 back in June 2012)

              The apps still on your phone that are 32 bit only could still be run, as it is easy to emulate the 32 bit ISA using a 64 bit CPU (Apple did much the same thing for its various transitions in the Mac world) but they'd be gone from the App Store, so if you deleted them off your phone you wouldn't be able to re-download them.

              Doing this would have a lot of benefits for Apple in reducing the effort involved in designing and (especially) testing new versions of iOS and new SoCs, since all the 32 bit stuff simply goes away.

    2. Dummy00001

      Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

      > I could see this as a good opportunity to strip all of this crap out to have a pure 64bit CPU.

      That won't work, since MS has royally messed up 32-bit/64-bit portability/compatibility, on these days on Windows, a rare application is actually 64-bit.

      It was funny to see the 32-bit vs 64-bit compatibility development on Windows and Linux having orthogonally different problems: former was botched by the supposed "backward compatibility", later was delayed by inability of most applications to cope with two/more sets of different system libraries/interfaces. Linux obviously eventually fixed the problems. But on Windows it is still the same: the popular recommendation is to develop exclusively 32-bit applications, and simply forget about the 64-bit.

    3. Paul

      Re: Opportunity to get rid of 32bit silicon?

      it's called Itanium?

  6. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Unless you are Really Big Biz this...

    "officially supported only by Microsoft’s Windows 10.

    means SFA to man or beast.

    I've seet MS quoted as saying that other OS's will run but won't take advantage of new tricks in the X86 microcode.

    That seems to be a world of difference to 'won't run'.

    To me, won't run means something like trying to boot a Solaris (Sparc) Cd/DVS on an X86 CPU.

    Or trying to Run Windows 7 on a machine with 512Kb of Ram when the min is 1Gb (or more).

    Or trying to stop 'svchost.exe' from using all the RAM and CPU for no effing reason.

    1. Snowy Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Unless you are Really Big Biz this...

      Indeed 100% correct have an upvote (was about to post the same thing)

    2. Paul Webb

      Re: Unless you are Really Big Biz this...

      Upvote for effin 'svchost.exe'.

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