Reply to post: Let me see if I'm getting this right...

Microsoft herds biz users to Windows 10 by denying support for Win 7 and 8 on new CPUs

theOtherJT Silver badge

Let me see if I'm getting this right...

What they're saying is that because Windows 7 was engineered for older CPUs it requires various compatibility type stuff for newer ones, which MS will no longer be providing.

Now, if they're talking about things like SSE* and other extensions to the x86 (or x86_64) spec, that's fine. New stuff is invented, old OS doesn't know it exists, so won't use it - but that shouldn't stop the old OS from running, surely? It just means you don't get access to all the new shiny that the CPU can provide.

Unless they're pushing a version check into Win7 that checks what kind of CPU it's running on and then flat refuses to work unless it's a known good (in which case, don't install that particular update) the only way I can see them preventing Win7 from running on _any_ CPU that supports the x86_64 standard is for them to get the chip manufacturers to change the way the chip reports it's capabilities.

I have to assume that very early in the boot process Windows tries to determine what the CPU is capable of by running some instructions, and if it doesn't get answers it likes it'll stall with "Unsupported architecture" or similar.

So, for this to work, despite being x86_64 capable, at that point these new CPU's say "Sorry I don't know what you want from me. I'm an x86_64_Forced_Upgrade" at which point Win7 will go "Well, as far as I can tell this isn't an x86 compatible CPU, so I give up"?

*Whatever version of that we're on by now

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