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Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

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Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#51

Post by driverdan »

doikor wrote: post #21
fartcannon wrote: post #15

It's painful to repeatedly witness people voluntarily buy into ecosystems maintained by people with perverse incentives. You can't fault MS, making more money is their raison d'etre. If you care at all, even the smallest amount, explore the alternatives.

Microsoft did (still?) offer a free upgrade path from Windows 7/8 to Windows 10 for years so I doubt this is really for "getting money from our customers" but more "we want to stop supporting these old platforms at some point"

They still make money on free Win10 by spying on your activity, showing ads, and aggressively pushing purchase from their store.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#52

Post by PieUser »

FreakyT wrote: post #29
varispeed wrote: post #25

What Microsoft is doing should be illegal. If you buy a product, you should be able to use it throughout your lifetime or until the product naturally cease to operate. In this case, Microsoft should release an open source tool to cross sign the drivers if they don't want to support it or add an update that disables checking for signatures. If a company can disable software features in the future, then you are no buyi…

Completely agree -- this is even worse for mobile phones, where often it's impossible to even upgrade the OS past the one it shipped with. The second a company stops supporting a product, they should be legally required to fully unlock the bootloader/drivers/etc.

I completely disagree.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#53

Post by TillE »

Microsoft has repeatedly announced strict changes to driver signing policy while not actually enforcing them. Like last time I checked, their docs still claim that the HLK tests are required for drivers on Windows Server 2019, but in practice attestation signing works fine.

I hope that will also be the case here.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#54

Post by freeone3000 »

StillBored wrote: post #47
cpgxiii wrote: post #44

The title is a gross exaggeration of the policy change MS is making. Come 2021, what will go away is the ability to sign drivers for Windows 7 and 8 without passing WHQL/HLK compliance tests. That's it. You can still update compliant drivers, and you can still ship unsigned drivers if your users are willing to disable signing (not great, but there are plenty of shitty vendors who do this already). Are there some numb…

How do you permanently disable signing on 64-bit win7? Last I checked it wasn't possible to do cleanly, you end up needing user interaction for every boot, or you get a nag border. So, its a big deal.

The nag border is only visible with the desktop showing, it's not a big deal at all.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#56

Post by miles »

mrguyorama wrote: post #49
m463 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only free, but forced!

My Windows 7 PC was never forcibly upgraded. I don't know what you are talking about

> I don't know what you are talking about

New details emerge about forced Windows 10 upgrade -- and how to block it https://www.computerworld.com/article/3029613/new-details-em...

Microsoft’s latest trick: Clicking ‘X’ to dismiss Windows 10 upgrade doesn’t stop install https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/229040-microsofts-latest...

Microsoft accused of Windows 10 upgrade 'nasty trick' https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36367221

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#57

Post by freeone3000 »

dvdkon wrote: post #31
ComputerGuru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working video support (without hardware acceleration) out of the box without any external drivers for all current and future graphics cards because they actually implement the “core” vga spec (plus all the official and unofficial revisions to get higher resolutions working). We have to ship updates to our bootable Linux and BSD applications every six months just so customers don’t get stuck in text mode, or worse yet…

My go-to solution to booting an older Linux version on a newer GPU is `nomodeset` and possibly other flags that force-disable the use of device-specific drivers. I don't see how this is different on Windows.

Windows doesn't require a list of unspecified kernel flags to get a UI, it just gets one.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#58

Post by matoro »

tsimionescu wrote: post #42
fartcannon wrote: post #15

It's painful to repeatedly witness people voluntarily buy into ecosystems maintained by people with perverse incentives. You can't fault MS, making more money is their raison d'etre. If you care at all, even the smallest amount, explore the alternatives.

Are there more people releasing drivers for Linux 2.6 or 3.9 (the versions released ~when Win 7 and Win 8 launched respectively)? Or for OpenBSD 4.4? I think the state of support for Linux and open source in general is much, much worse than for commercial software. No one is maintaining >10 year old software. Especially not for free. Do note that this is not a story about not being able to run Win 7 anymore - it's si…

Yes? RHEL 6 uses kernel 2.6 and RHEL 7 uses kernel 3.10. Both are actively maintained and supported.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#59

Post by userbinator »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #41
Kranar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not possible to install unsigned drivers on Windows 7? You won't get support from Microsoft in doing so, but you'll be able to continue using Windows 7 and will have to find an alternative way of validating the drivers.

I don't know about windows 7, but on win10, one has to 1. generate one's own key 2. sign the driver 3. turn on test signing mode, which puts a watermark in the bottom-right of the desktop background, somewhat like "activate windows" watermark but only on background. Oh, and 1. and 2. are tedious, poorly-documented processes for which microsoft provides almost no support.

There are/will be if there already aren't patches which will disable the checks completely. With win10 it's a moving target, but 7 is not anymore so you don't have to worry about MS reverting your changes in an update.

Re: Microsoft: No Driver Updates Allowed for Win7 and Win8

#60

Post by ryukafalz »

app4soft wrote: post #48
qppo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Windows and MacOS for users that want a computer that works. FOSS alternatives are for developers and power users that want a computer like someone wants a project car. I say this as a happy Linux user at home. But I need to use Windows for work because of multiple programs that do not run on any other target. In school (this has changed a bit) I need to use Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. At home I s…

> But I need to use Windows for work because of multiple programs that do not run on any other target. > At home I still have to dual boot Windows to play games with my friends. In most cases you may execute such programs & games under Linux via WINE (+ Mono, PlayOnLinux, Winetricks; if needed).[0] > In school (this has changed a bit) I need to use Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. Use LibreOffice Impress , Calc…

> In most cases you may execute such programs & games under Linux via WINE (+ Mono, PlayOnLinux, Winetricks; if needed).

I do this for most games I want to play (and many are available natively on Linux these days!) but there are a few games with intrusive DRM that stop you from playing them on Linux.

I have an older laptop lying around running Windows that I use for those if they’re not too demanding. Otherwise I’ll buy them on a console, though I tend to only buy consoles after they’ve been out for several years these days.

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