There is no good reason to break backward compatibility at the hardware level. I checked the Microsoft link in the article and found nothing in the Microsoft announcement (https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/01/15/windows-10-embracing-silicon-innovation/#9hvKDeXAqGuI93h2.97) that says that that Win 7/8 won’t install on the new chips.
What Terry Myerson is claiming is that Microsoft won’t “support” Windows 7/8 on the newer chips, whatever that means.
Microsoft has already dropped Windows 7 support down to extended support (security fixes only). There is no reason to expect that Win 7 won’t run fine on the new chips, just don’t expect the new chip features to be used. Intel and AMD will publish .INF drivers to recognize the new CPUs (these ‘drivers’ do little more than report the chip name and version in Device Manager and other places).
Myerson is creating unnecessary FUD by being deliberating being vague about what ‘support’ means.
As a practical matter there is no way that Microsoft is going to break hardware compatibility like that, certainly not for old VMs if nothing else. Far too much legacy stuff depends on it.
This FUD announcement by Myerson is stupid. It has to be royally pissing off Intel and AMD because it will just kill a huge segment of the market for Intel/AMD’s new chips (basically the entire legacy market), which neither Intel nor AMD would ever willingly do.
Exactly.