In the continued effort to drive business PC users to Windows 10, Microsoft and its hardware partners are taking a new tack. They strongly suggest users combine new CPUs with the new Microsoft OS.
Based around the close knit integration between Windows 10 and the latest multi-threaded, hyper-optimized silicon, partners including Intel, AMD, NVidia, and Qualcomm, want to show off devices running at their best and most reliable. That doesn’t include you and your old OS!
Running a 10 year old OS on a new PC requires lots of negotiation and optimization. No one wants to do that when they can sell you an all-new system. So, downgrades to older OS are going to be impossible or hard to come across for business users.
New CPUs heart Windows 10
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full blog post explains the changes. It highlights some of the big savings in power efficiency, boosts in graphics performance and other benefits. However, that’s not much good if you have an old OS on a new CPU.
The rest is the usual bullet point ticking of things being better with Cortana, Windows Hello and other features. There’s also the usual citation from a big business about how much time and money that can save.
While not exactly spreading FUD. It does put a big marker down to any business planning to stick with an old Windows OS.
So, Microsoft’s wriggle room extends to July 17, 2017. After that time only a few Skylake-powered PCs on a supported list can run Windows 7 and 8.1, but will only get bare bones updates and minimal support.
That should help push any laggards into upgrading to Windows 10. In the mean time Microsoft is pushing how technically easy and cost efficient it is to perform migrations.
For most casual users, getting over a love-in with Windows 7 should be pretty straight forward. However, expect Microsoft to keep banging the business drum until every last mom-and-pop company or billion dollar enterprise on the planet is on compliance when it comes to Windows 10.
source:windows10update
