From InfoWorld: Microsoft said today that it has tweaked its support options for customers who want to run the latest Intel Skylake processors on Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Microsoft will extend its specialized support options for a year and offer more updates to those customers when its specialized support period expires.
These are likely welcome changes to what Microsoft set up in January, when the company outlined a plan to provide specialized support for business customers who wanted to buy a PC powered by Intel's latest Skylake processor, but who also wanted to stick with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Microsoft agreed to support dozens of specific PCs, including gaming PCs from companies like Dell.
After July 2017, though, that support would end -- save for only the most critical updates -- and customers were expected to move to Windows 10. That was much too soon for enterprises, most of whom have only recently migrated to Windows 7.
The idea, from Microsoft's perspective, was that the growing gap between the aging Windows 7 OS and the latest Skylake hardware offered many opportunities for bugs and other failures, and they would only increase over time. Pushing customers to Windows 10 at the end of that transitional period would help mitigate this.
But after customer backlash, the support period for Windows 7/8.1 on Skylake will now end a year later, on July 17, 2018. After that, Microsoft said all critical security updates will be targeted for Skylake systems until extended support ends, a softening of the "most critical" language Microsoft used previously.
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