It’s no big secret that Microsoft wants to see Windows 7 gone. But since support for this old OS is set to last until January 2020, the company can’t really do anything.
The popular operating system was released in 2009, and that means PCs even older than this date were quickly to deploy Windows 7. They still are rocking this version of Windows, with no intention of upgrading to newer ones.
However, as this new report reveals, some of these older PCs might not be able to install updates and security fixes on Windows 7 due to a quiet policy change from Redmond.
One that has the company ending support for Windows 7.
Prematurely.
Apparently, Windows 7 devices not supporting SSE2 have allegedly been blocked from getting new updates. All Pentium III configurations are said to be affected with this surprising change.
It all started with the March Monthly Rollup for Windows 7, listed as KB4088875.
It came with a known issue that impacted devices that did no support Streaming Single Instructions Multiple Data (SIMD) Extensions 2 (SSE2).
Long story short, despite Microsoft promising a fix every month since then, the June 2018 Monthly Rollup introduced a new policy that requires users to upgrade your machines with a processor that supports SSE2 or virtualize those machines.
By the looks of things, Redmond seems to have given up trying to address the bug introduced by the March update, and now requires users to upgrade their systems to newer hardware.
That is, if they want to deploy the latest patches and security updates.
Chances are that this new policy has been introduced because of the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities that are affecting Intel processors. For Microsoft, though, this is a chance to wave goodbye for some older Windows 7 PCs.
Even if it is limited to these chips.
Moral of the story is that twilight for Windows 7 is fast approaching, and a future where Windows 10 is the dominant operating system on desktop is almost upon us.
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