[HH] Here's Why Intel Kaby Lake And AMD Zen Will Only Be Optimized On Windows 10

[Blín D'ñero]

There has been quite a bit of noise and plenty of confusion online lately, since news broke that Microsoft would only be fully supporting Intel’s and AMD’s next-generation processor microarchitectures – codenamed Kaby Lake and Zen, respectively – with Windows 10. Some publications and scores of readers pegged the decision as a pure marketing move by Microsoft and derided the company for forcing users to upgrade to Windows 10.

On the surface, we understand why such a statement would make some people cringe. Not supporting Windows 7, which remains the second most popular desktop OS with enthusiasts, or the much-maligned Windows 8, means consumers will technically have fewer options and less choice when these processors actually hit the market. But that’s not necessarily the case.

If you remember, Intel’s Skylake was originally supposed to be locked to Windows 10 at one point too, but that policy was changed back in March. The Skylake announcement caused quite an uproar as well, which was somewhat more expected considering Windows 10 was only a few weeks old when Skylake launched. But there is a distinction to be made between “support” and “compatibility”. Even if Microsoft stuck to its original decision, that didn’t mean Windows 7 and 8 would have suddenly stopped working on Intel Skylake-based processors. It just meant future updates and optimizations wouldn’t be made to the older OSes as they relate to Intel's new Skylake architecture.

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Read full article at source (hothardware.com)