Microsoft Backtracks on Windows 7 & 8.1 Support Plan for Skylake Devices

In a reversal of a policy they announced back in January, Microsoft has quietly unveiled a change in the support for Windows 7 and 8.1 operating systems that run on the Intel Skylake chipset.

You may recall an announcement from Terry Myerson on 15 January of this year that laid out a plan that would have Microsoft only supporting Windows 7 and 8.1 on Skylake hardware until July 2017.

A week later they provided a detailed list of the specific hardware that fell under this new support policy.

At that time there was much gnashing of teeth because this change was going to force companies to upgrade to Windows 10 - many much earlier than they may have been - because of the new hardware that is expected on the market by that time.

Flash forwarding to today and we have a very subdued blog post, being posted on the Microsoft Windows for IT Pros TechNet site - not on the big Windows Experience blog where the initial announcement was delivered - sharing that the original policy is changing.

A Microsoft employee, writing under the handle jkorst, says users of this unique hardware and operating system set up will get an extra year of support.

To help provide greater flexibility for customers who have longer deployment timeframes to Windows 10, the support period for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 devices on Skylake systems will be extended by one year: from July 17, 2017 to July 17, 2018.

Users on Windows 7 and 8.1 will also continue receiving all security updates until the end of extended support for those operating systems:

Also, after July 2018, all critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for Skylake systems until extended support ends for Windows 7, January 14, 2020 and Windows 8.1 on January 10, 2023.

This is a huge reversal of the support plan announced back in January because back then the plan was laid out as follows:

"After July 2017, the most critical Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 security updates will be addressed for these configurations, and will be released if the update does not risk the reliability or compatibility of the Windows 7/8.1 platform on other devices."

Is this adjustment the right response from Microsoft?

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.

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