Windows 10 Support Cutoff Comes Early on Some PCs

[engine]

According to a report on ZDNet, some three or four year old PCs will no longer receive new feature and security patches to Windows 10. The reason appears to be because of an incompatibility between the hardware, which was 8 or 8.1. Users that upgraded with the free Windows 10 upgrade might find the compatibility issues with the latest and subsequent release of Windows 10.

If Microsoft don't issue a fix, those machines could be rendered out of date, or at worst, useless.

There's no easy way to work around the block, either. Unless and until the underlying compatibility issue is fixed, this device is stuck on Windows 10, version 1607.

[zdnet.com...]

The bottom line: If your PC was originally designed for Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 and the manufacturer doesn't officially support it for Windows 10, you're at risk.

I would have thought MS would have issued a fix on this in good time, if it's able. Well, let's hope so, or there's going to be a lot of unhappy campers out there.

[keyplyr]

I think that only applies to bundled, packaged & branded PCs or laptops.

Those of us with bare bones boxes that originally installed 7 or 8, then took the free upgrade to 10, aren't affected *unless* there is some other odd issue involved.

I'll never go back to buying a bundled computer, not a desktop anyway.

[engine]

This appears to only affect Intel's Atom Clover Trail series CPUs, which were, supposedly, for entry-level devices.

[tangor]

This particular end of support issue is for a limited number of systems/hardware combinations. MS certainly would not risk alienating large segments of their established user base by killing off a million or more machines. That would be some really bad press.

[engine]

There must be a number because eight tablets and hybrids from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and ZTE may be affected.
You would have thought that Microsoft would know the numbers involved by the number of registrations.

[Hoople]

Microsoft's principal statement, so far, on Windows 10 Atom support (excerpt)

This is the case with devices utilizing Intel Clover Trail Atom Processors1 today: they require additional hardware support to provide the best possible experience when updating to the latest Windows 10 feature update, the Windows 10 Creators Update. However, these systems are no longer supported by Intel (End of Interactive Support), and without the necessary driver support, they may be incapable of moving to the Windows 10 Creators Update without a potential performance impact.

source [redmondmag.com ]

So basically they want all users of Windows 10 to experience high-quality performance. Not a bad concept after a decade of slow and underpowered PC's in the retail stream. Repair shops are tire of devices dropped on the counter with the request of "can you make it faster?" An impossible task for a Vista/Windows 7 machine with 2gb of memory!