Windows 10 v older versions

[jch2103]

For those still considering whether/when to upgrade to Windows 10, the following link gives a 'deep dive' into Microsoft's plans for the future, including which processors are to be supported by the operating system:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to-upgrade-to-windows-10/

Fairly technical article, but bottom line is that Microsoft is continuing to curtail support for older Windows versions and hardware and push adoption of Windows 10. The article touches on some of the issues that Mario has mentioned about supporting old hardware/software.

[ColinIM]

Thank you John,

Food for thought ...

Evidently we must now plan on upgrading our PC hardware too!!
Much sooner than I would like to.
Sigh!!!

[jch2103]

Evidently we must now plan on upgrading our PC hardware too!!
Much sooner than I would like to.

The good news is that whatever OS/hardware you are using will continue to work (although Microsoft will stop support for Windows OS updates at some point, as they have already done for XP). I think the take-home for the article is more that you might have issues installing older versions of Windows on future Intel processors, and that if you do Microsoft won't provide support...

[Mario]

Windows 7 now requires extra effort when developing software, e.g. explicitly not using new features in development environments, limiting DirectX usage to features available on Windows 7, using older versions of development libraries etc.

Toolkit vendors are also slowly phasing out Windows 7 support. Windows 7 is now, what, 10 years old?

As with XP or Vista, I will try to keep up support for W7 unless it becomes too hard.

All my computers now run Windows 10, which is real nice because the same software runs on all computers. Never looked back to Windows 7 (I skipped Vista and W8, mind).

[tmcgill]

Toolkit vendors are also slowly phasing out Windows 7 support. Windows 7 is now, what, 10 years old?

Hah, not quite. RTM was in October 2009, so less than 6.5 years old. It only feels old because it is now two versions back, but the 8 to 10 release cycle was unusually short.

[Mario]

6.5 years old?
Geez, that is what in non-computer time? A century