back to article Microsoft hoses down Windows Server hardware support change fears

Microsoft's issued an interesting post in which it says it is making no changes to hardware support for Windows Server. Hang on there Reg! Why are you reporting a post that says nothing is changing? The answer, dear readers, is that back in January Microsoft announced it would not support Windows 7 and 8 on new CPUs. The …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm confident this will be pushed on users

    either down their throats or up on their bottoms. It all depends how they stand on this matter.

    1. Aniya
      Thumb Down

      Re: I'm confident this will be pushed on users

      Microsoft can push all they want. I had actually wanted to upgrade a few dozen PC's in our company by the middle of this year. But I cancelled those plans when I heard that Microsoft was not going to support Skylake on Windows 7 for much longer since we do not have Windows 10 plans.

      Those existing PC's are still working okay. It was not a case of "we must upgrade." It was more a case of "nice to upgrade." If we have the budget, why not? If some of our PC's are seven years old, might as well. But thanks to Microsoft we will upgrade networking instead.

      So. If Microsoft and all their delusional partners think Windows 10 is going to increase sales of hardware. I am not so sure. Not for business users at least. I do know a few others with purchasing powers who at the very least have put their plans on hold for a year.

      For my personal PC at home I disable Windows Update already. I never use it online anyway. For online work I have my notebook, which I use RHEL client. I like this arrangement for now since I still need Windows for a few games I play. But I do not mind paying for quality.

      1. David 132 Silver badge

        Re: I'm confident this will be pushed on users

        Aniya,

        You wrote:

        when I heard that Microsoft was not going to support Skylake on Windows 7 for much longer

        My understanding is that it's future platforms that won't be supported for Windows 7 or 8.x; Skylake will continue to be supported as a Windows 7 platform (with Intel drivers, etc) for the foreseeable future.

        Microsoft will not support Windows 7/8 running on next year's Skylake replacement. And that's where the objections are coming from; by doing this, Microsoft are effectively saying to corporate buyers "you WILL upgrade to Windows 10 within the next 12 months".

        1. Aniya
          Thumb Up

          Re: I'm confident this will be pushed on users

          Thank you David 132 for clarifying. It is a little bit of both it seems.

          If you search "Skylake Windows 7 Support" there is a Microsoft link which elaborates on the situation. There it says that "support will be provided until July 17, 2017" for "Intel's 6th generation of processors, also known as Skylake." After this specific date, only "the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed."

          I guess we better hope that none of the security fixes will result in big problems because Microsoft also goes on to say that updates will "be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7."

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ummm...

    I was going to type a long missive to Satya but fuckit. I found myself looking at Ubuntu 16.04 with interest last night. ZFS oh my, not that I can't do that in most any other 'nix variant. Got two and a half Windows Server 2012 R2 machines across the room. My interest in 2016 is waning. Actually Microsoft's interest in anything meaningful to me or my set of friends is what's waning. But fuckit.

    1. Aniya
      Meh

      Re: Ummm...

      Yep, me too. I had some excitement for Server 2016 until the middle of last year. I wonder what happened in the middle of last year that diminished my interest in Server 2016. For work we will always have some Windows Server because of AD, GPO, WSUS and a few other useful services to manage Windows clients.

      But web, database, mail and everything else has been Linux forever and this just cements my will to keep Windows installs in my server room at its minimum.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Microsoft still thinks it holds the PC market in its hands

    Microsoft can keep pushing all it wants, at some point it is just going to push people away from Windows.

    The upcoming generation barely knows Windows. Teens today are on Android or iOS, or wasting time on tablets that don't have Windows either. They are used to Gmail and Google Docs. In the next decade, they're not only going to enter the workplace, some of them will end up IT managers.

    I'm betting that, come that day, they'll look at Microsoft licence costs, upgrade treadmill costs, service disruption and risk of data loss and they'll say "What the hell?" and move everything to Linux.

    So keep pushing, Satya. Microsoft has always been the best reason to go to Linux, one day people will listen.

    1. Hans 1

      Re: Microsoft still thinks it holds the PC market in its hands

      The interesting thing is, the day that starts happening, it will be a landslide, like ie marketshare's plummeting some years ago ...

      1. Chika
        Trollface

        Re: Microsoft still thinks it holds the PC market in its hands

        Wonder if they got the same management advice that the Fine Bros. did?

  4. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    Oh look, I don't care.

    Already running on a fully virtualised Xen system with a Linux dom0, and Windows 8.1 and FreeBSD HVM domUs with hardware passthrough, so Windows is already on a virtual CPU.

    Will probably move to Windows 10 for my gaming system at some point, don't know if I'll bother with my desktop.

  5. david 12 Silver badge

    Zero inpact on most home users. Zero impact on most servers

    Since most of them are on OEM or hardware-linked licences, you can't install new or copy old once they stop selling anyway.

    It's been awhile since I was corporate, but it used to be most workstations had floating licences. That's not true of servers now.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like