Still crap and will remain so until there will be no other end of support until the official end of extended support. But maybe they'll get there.

... and maybe I'll get to Linux by 2020 then, because even if leaving anything else aside auto-updates to OS or other core components will not happen on a PC I'm using, period, and same goes for those that won't give me some passable description of what they'll change.

Saw JayzTwoCents talking about the new AMD processors that are en route, turns out they'll be win10 only too :$

http://uk.pcmag.com/windows-10/74560/news/next-gen-cpus-will-only-support-windows-10

*sigh*

Okay so latest Windows version only.... but.... but what about Linux and OSX? They should be supported even if the same principle of latest version only applies again.

Also, even if that was a necro, it is a good reminder about something that could come as a shock to some people otherwise.

KDE5 on KDE Neon distro uses only 400 MiB RAM. Just saying...

Hopefully there will be something on Linux, but I'm guessing it could be quite some time down the road from release.

Should work fine

From March last year: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=amd-zen-cpu-znver1

Oh, that is all good then. Apple must for sure follow.

*sigh* Not that I care for AMD, but sure shows how they're all in one grasp. Or all in something herding users in a single particular and nasty direction, at least.

Linux really needs a lot of love from devs in the next few years to become the proper alternative it never was so far, on a large scale I mean. The opportunity is there at least, but... Don't have high hopes. Question is how much will hardware manufacturers who're so much on this Win10-only bandwagon and in MS's grasp help Linux devs.

Either way, if I'll manage to upgrade this system at all, it'll be keeping the motherboard and replacing CPU with what it can take, a 4690S, even if it's a fair bit more expensive than a 6600 now for example. Will avoid this problem and I'll be staying there till 2020. Or at least I hope it'll work.

F' MS!

Anyone who buys anymore of their products is an idiot. Just let that company die off.

Use AMD and Linux.

Well I have until January 10, 2023 which is end of extended support for Windoze 8.1. Then I will move to whatever OS available then that is most compatible with all the games. I don't see myself using 10 or anything newer by Microsoft. I predict the gaming market to be crappier than it already is by then. I can maybe beat a few games in my GoG library from now till then.

Great news for win7 users!

Not so good for Intel users.

"AMD will also provide drivers for Microsoft Windows 7 for Ryzen and all chipsets for the AM4 socket . This was announced by the manufacturer as part of an information event on the platform. Intel officially supports Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 at Kaby Lake under Microsoft's operating systems.
Intel has no more Windows 7 drivers for Kaby Lake

With Intel, this means that the integrated graphics unit can only be activated via drivers that have been customized by mainboard manufacturers, as Heise Online has shown. AMD, on the other hand, wants to ensure that the new CPUs and chipsets are fully functional even under Windows 7, the support of which is completely discontinued in three years.
The driver is just one side of the coin

This does not have to mean that Windows 7 will be able to exploit all the possibilities of Ryzen and chipsets. The operating system has been receiving security and function updates for more than two years, and Microsoft has confirmed its intention not to fully support new processors under Windows 8.1. In Windows 7, in cooperation with Kaby Lake, this ensures that the integrated video processor does not fully support the existing HEVC (H.264) driver. Even the Media Player integrated in Windows 8.1 does not have the desired effect with a Kaby-Lake-CPU despite official driver with HEVC in the Main 10 profile. With Ryzen without graphics and video unit, for example, this could have an influence on the current saving modes.
At Ryzen the graphics card is decisive

That Ryzen videos can speed up is again unlikely. As a rule, the video processor is integrated in the graphics unit. Desktop PCs based on Ryzen always need an external graphics card and its video unit will probably decide which formats can be accelerated in hardware."

Luckly Skylake is still quite compatible with Win7. O_o'
I cannot believe that I'll have to abandon Windows at a certain point.
Way to lose long-time customers MS..

Hopefully, Linux will be more compatible with games at that point lol.

maybe a late reply, just found this video today:

Installing Windows 7 on Kaby Lake, Skylake, Coffee Lake and NVME ( Streamed live on Oct 2, 2017 )

https://youtu.be/8VTC4k6SLWY
The hardware tested seem to be quite expensive..... i wonder if it really works win7 64bits on latest hardware without crashing every 15 minutes or dozens of BSoDs ( Blue Screens of Death) cause thats no fun using it, also wonder if it works with cheaper hardware : like the i 3 - 8100 and up and the cheaper mobos and CPUs/GPUs




seems lots of users all over the globe dont like win 10, minus the large number of sheeps that will buy win 10 without even blinking cause they are sheeps and follow the herd.

Dozens of topics and videos on youtube about the spying win 10 does and many topics in as many online forums.

Win 10 is forced on us, normally you would always have 2 windows OS installed: like win98se + xp, xp + win 7 or 8
now we have to do with 'spyware' win 10 , a piece of software you have no control over, 13 pages of settings to check, and even then they still phone home, seems there is also a part thats in the cloud.

Anyway if the product was for free then we would have no reason to complain that it spies on us, but paying for spyware ?

I think real-world Windows 7 compatibility needs to be clarified:-

- Sky Lake (H110/B150/H170/Z170) and 6xxx CPU's are the last "officially supported" CPU & motherboard platform for W7. iGPU drivers are present for HD530. Most Skylake motherboards also support Kaby Lake CPU's with a BIOS update.

- Kaby Lake (B250/H270/Z270) and 7xxx CPU's work perfectly on Windows 7 despite MS's claim to the contrary. All motherboard drivers (chipset, LAN, audio, SATA, Wi-Fi, etc) for both 100 & 200 series chipsets are present. Intel also reluctantly released the iGPU driver, so the HD630 on Kaby Lake chips does work in W7.

- Coffee Lake v1 (Z370 / B365 / H310 (R2.0)) and 8xxx CPU's is actually still another "KabyLake v2" refresh. Again despite MS's claim, most drivers are still present. For a while there were no UHD 630 iGPU drivers, however there are now new ones here. If you plan on using an nVidia / AMD GPU and disabling the iGPU on a Z370 board, then those too can be made to run fine on W7 (nVidia still makes drivers for W7 up to Turing / Ampere).

- Coffee Lake v2 (H310 (R1.0)/B360/H370/Z390) and 8xxx / 9xxx CPU's used to not work on W7, however new signed USB Gen 2 drivers are available here that appears to fix the problem. However, newer boards still come with newer components (eg, W7 drivers for "CNVi" based Wi-Fi 6 / future 2.5gbps LAN chips are hard to find vs older Intel AC7260 / i219-V) so onboard network devices may not work, so you may need to add an older PCI-e / USB one, or preferably find a board with older Wi-Fi & Gigabit LAN.

- Comet Lake (H410 / B460 / H470 / Z490) and 10xxx CPU's may work with above experimental drivers. Unknown at this time.

- Ryzen 1 CPU's (1000 series CPU's + B350 / X370) mostly have all drivers for W7.

- Ryzen APU's (Raven Ridge 2200G/2400G/3200G/3400G) ARE NOT GUARANTEED TO WORK ON W7. They used to immediately throw up "AHCI" errors during booting even if a dGPU is present and the iGPU disabled. However, using the newest BIOS upgrade + a new driver is available here that have fixed that problem for some. These APU's also don't even work properly on early pre-2017 versions of W10 without causing color corruption errors. Raven Ridge APU's require W10 1709 MINIMUM ("Fall Creators Update").

- Ryzen + CPU's (2000 series CPU's + B450 / X470) depends on the individual board. Eg, some boards have the same problem as Coffee Lake v2 regarding no W7 drivers for CNVi based Wi-Fi, etc. There are boards with older Wi-Fi, etc, chips that work on W7 though. One option is also a 2000 CPU on an older B350/X370 board.

- Ryzen 2 CPU's (3000 series CPU's + A520/B550/X570) also depends on the board. Many are less W7 compatible due to newer Wi-Fi etc lacking drivers, however it is still possible to use a Ryzen 3000 series chip in a W7 compatible B450 board. Experimental drivers are available here for new A520 / B550 / X570 boards.

- Ryzen 3 CPU's (5000 series CPU's + A520/B550/X570). You may possibly get it to run using the same above experimental driver as Ryzen 2 CPU's (some people have gotten it to work). Obviously it's going to vary by board.

- nVidia Pascal (10xx) & Turing (16xx / 20xx) and Ampere (30xx) GPU's (64-bit) work perfectly on W7 via official drivers (minus DX12 compatibility, Ray-Tracing and "G-Sync Compatible" (Freesync on nVidia) features). nVidia ceased 32-bit drivers as of v391.35 (supports up to Pascal (10xx)), so there are no W7 32-bit drivers available for Turing / Ampere and newer cards.

- AMD RX (5xxx) / Vega / 6xx / 5xx / 4xx GPU (64-bit) support is available via official drivers (minus DX12 compatibility, etc). AMD ceased 32-bit drivers as of Adrenalin 18.9.3 WHQL (supports up to RX 500 series), so there are no W7 32-bit drivers available for RX5000 series and newer cards.

Additional Info:-

- From Skylake onwards, they've changed how USB is "presented" to the OS (EHCI to XHCI). Since W7 isn't natively XHCI aware, this can cause USB keyboards & mice to be unresponsive, and USB storage, eg, external HDD's / ODD's to be invisible during install. There are several workaround for this:-

1. Use a utility that "slip-streams" XHCI USB drivers into a new W7 install (either for creating a new XHCI aware USB stick or ISO file that can be burned to DVD-R). Each manufacturer (Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte and MSI all have their own simple utilities). They've since updated to add Hotfixes KB2990941 & KB3087873 plus NVMe drivers to allow installing W7 onto NVMe SSD's.

ASUS - https://www.asus.com/uk/support/FAQ/1015837/
ASROCK - http://www.asrock.com/microsite/Win7Install/
GIGABYTE - http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.com/2015/09/having-trouble-installing-windows-7-by.html
MSI - https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=261560.0

2. Temporarily enable a compatibility setting in the BIOS until both W7 has been installed and USB/XHCI drivers have been added. It's usually called something like "XHCI Handoff" or "W7 Compatibilty Install". ASRock's call their's "PS/2 simulator"

3. Simply use a real PS/2 keyboard instead of USB if your motherboard has such a port

4. Setup an unattended install which requires no keyb / mouse input and include "silent installation" of USB drivers.

Once W7 has been installed and you've installed the XHCI USB drivers, you can go back to using USB devices as normal.

- Microsoft have also disabled W7 security updates on Kaby Lake or newer CPU's. To re-enable it for Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake and Ryzen's, simply download and use the "WUFUC" patch:-
https://github.com/zeffy/wufuc

tl:dr - The newest CPU's that can be guaranteed to run with W7 with "stock" drivers (inc iGPU) are Kaby Lake (7xxx) / Ryzen 1xxx-2xxx's. If you are willing to use experimental drivers, then you can just about get both Coffee Lake (8xxx-9xxx) and Ryzen 3xxx CPU's to work (may be easier on older B450/X470 boards than newer A520/B550/X570). The very newest Comet Lake (10xxx) / Ryzen 5xxx CPU's are unconfirmed. Experimental iGPU drivers exist for UHD630 and Raven Ridge (2200G/2400G). You will generally need to "slipstream" USB drivers no matter which CPU you have (easy to do).

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