It’s been reported recently by a number of sources that Microsoft has dropped support for a number of Intel Atom processors in the most recent Creators Update. That alone should be cause for alarm for a number of people running some older hardware that still suits their needs. It shows that at any time Microsoft can just stop supporting particular hardware meaning that users of that hardware will stop receiving critical security updates. A software company shouldn’t have that much control over people’s hardware, in my opinion, and this can lead to abuse by Microsoft to force people to buy new computers, and hence new Windows licenses. As bad as that is, the violation of Wheaton’s Law comes from the fact that the devices with said processors where likely shipped with Windows 8 or 8.1, and if the users hadn’t upgraded to Windows 10, they’d be entitled to security updates through 2023, while now they will stop receiving those updates sometime in 2018!
That, my friends, is a clear violation of Wheaton’s Law. Yes, the Intel Atom processors are not top performers. The “highest-end” of these processors, the Atom Z2760, is a dual-core, quad-thread, 1.8 GHz chip capable of supporting a maximum of 2.4 GB of RAM. However, the people who purchased these computers would be those who needed a basic computer for accessing the internet, maybe some light office tasks, and couldn’t afford anything more expensive. To suddenly force them in a situation where they are losing 5 years of support they should have been guaranteed because they decided to upgrade to Windows 10, perhaps because of the promise of it being the last version of Windows that will always be up to date, could be seen as bait-and-switch. It’s my hope that those affected by this are able to move their computers back to Windows 8/8.1 and continue to receive updates for the rest of that operating systems lifetime.
I’m sure Microsoft did a lot of calculations before coming to this decision. It may have just honestly been that the processors in question wouldn’t be able to run the Creators Update. After, Windows is a resource hungry OS and I suspect that Windows 10 will continue to bloat over the years. It is almost certainly something that would only affect a small number of Windows users (I doubt many of those low end devices have survived more than a couple of years without hardware failure). But I do find it concerning.
Prior to Windows 10, Microsoft had two direct sources of revenue from its OS. First was PC sales, where part of your purchase price includes a license fee for Windows. This is still there with Windows 10, and always will be. The second was the selling of upgrade licenses. Arguably, this was a much smaller source of revenue, but a source none-the-less. That upgrade revenue is gone. Microsoft was likely hopeful that the incorporation of advertisements and the selling of apps through the Windows Store was going to more than make up for the lost revenue from upgrades. I have a feeling that it’s not working out for them like they thought.
Consider the release of Windows 10 S, the version of Windows that only allows you to install apps through the Windows Store. This does have the effect of making the device more secure. All software that can be installed, can be vetted by Microsoft. Some malicious software will make it through (as has happened on Android and iOS), but its at least less likely to happen then when people download random .exe files from a less than reputable website and run them to install “1000 super cool, HD, 3D, 4k, mesmerizing screen-savers!”
However, Windows 10 S is intended to go after the Chromebook segment. Chromebooks tend to be bought by the same kind of people who would have purchased a low-end, Intel Atom based Windows computer. People looking for a cheap computer for basic tasks. What better way to try to get people who already own such a computer to go out and buy a new one that will be more profitable for Microsoft than dropping support for their computers?
The scarier thought is that, if successful, Microsoft may start dropping support for a lot more processors. They could start by simply adopting a policy of dropping support for processors that are more than 5 years old, arguing that those processors just can’t handle the new features of Windows. If people start calling their bluff, they could become more nefarious and start including code to specifically cripple performance on older processors, allowing them to the turn around and say, “Told you so!”
To be forthcoming, the reason this story really caught my attention was that my wife’s computer hadn’t yet installed the Creators Update. I use Fedora GNU/Linux the vast majority of the time, so I hadn’t booted up my Windows partition on my laptop in quite sometime. This weekend, I wanted to play some Oxygen Not Included, so I started by spending several hours applying updates, including the Creators Update. My wife only uses Windows, and when she saw the “Welcome to the Creators Update” screen on my laptop she asked me what that was.
Her laptop is a mid-range HP Envy that’s about 3 years old with and AMD A10 processor, that originally came with Windows 8. It’s about the same age as many of the Intel Atom computers where support was dropped, so when I saw the first article about this, we began to wonder if they had also dropped support for her processor and it just wasn’t hitting the news just yet. Luckily, we were able to force her computer to install the Creators Update last night. Had Microsoft dropped support for her processor, I could have set her up with a Linux distribution and gotten all the things she needs up and running (though since AMD has dropped support for the Radeon HD 8500G graphics chip on the A10 APU, she’d have been stuck with the open source driver and not been able to play any games), but most people wouldn’t know that Linux is an option, or how to install it on their computers.
I do have a feeling that all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft forced obsolescence seems to be the future.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
An Astrophysicist's Journal 