According to the latest information coming from Microsoft and confirmed by Intel and AMD, it appears that both AMD's upcoming Zen CPU architecture based chips and Intel's 7th generation Core Kaby Lake CPUs will only support Windows 10 OS.

According to a report coming from PCWorld.com, Microsoft is putting a lot of pressure on both Intel and AMD to make the future architectures only available on Windows 10.

According to a Microsoft spokeswomen, new silicon generations will require the latest Windows platform for support which will allow Microsoft to focus on deep integration between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining maximum reliability and compatibility with previous generations of platform and silicon.

Intel spokesman replied to PCGamer with a statement that the company will not be updating Windows 7 or Windows 8 drivers for the 7th generation Intel Core due to Microsoft's support policy change while AMD said that their processor roadmap is "fully aligned with Microsoft's software strategy," or simply, both Intel and AMD will comply with Microsoft.

While this does not necessarily means that these CPUs/APUs won't work on older Windows operating systems, like Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, they will lack some features as both Intel and AMD won't be updating drivers.

Hopefully, Microsoft will change its software strategy and support policy. At least the Windows 10 OS is not that bad and plenty of users have already switched to the new OS.



Source: PCWorld.com.