PC Processors

[foreshadow]

Many of our customer's business applications still rely on Windows 7 and we have had a steady flow of them needing replacements in 2018 due to failing motherboards. While the default choice for them is Intel's G series Pentium builds, the recent shortage of 14nm Intel CPUs has prompted us to seek alternatives. We were interested in AMD's new Athlon GE series as they are competitively priced against Intel's G series. Unfortunately AMD doesn't appear to provide any Windows 7 drivers for APUs. To my knowledge, around 50% of Windows based PCs are still running Windows 7 so I hope AMD reconsider their support stance for Windows 7.

[black_zion]

Microsoft blocks updates of AMD Ryzen and AMD Kaby Lake (and later) on Windows 7, have since they were introduced, so you should advise your business clients of the risks. There is a workaround, but it is not guaranteed. That's why AMD doesn't officially support Windows 7 on Socket AM4. Some motherboard manufacturers do provide Windows 7 drivers, so I would suggest starting there.

https://www.support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4012982/the-processor-is-not-supported-together-with-th...

[foreshadow]

Yes, I've learnt of the open sourced tool "wufuc" on github to bypass the "Unsupported Hardware" message and continue receiving security patches from windows update. Because that AMD already provides windows 7 drivers for their AM4 chipsets and also Polaris and Vega GPUs, AMD is only a step away from making apus run on Windows 7 with APU Vega drivers. Please do this for for people willing to use your APUs on Windows 7. I prefer if AMD provide more options for users instead of pushing Windows 10 as the be-all, end-all solution for each individual needs.

[hardcoregames_]

foreshadow wrote:

Many of our customer's business applications still rely on Windows 7 and we have had a steady flow of them needing replacements in 2018 due to failing motherboards. While the default choice for them is Intel's G series Pentium builds, the recent shortage of 14nm Intel CPUs has prompted us to seek alternatives. We were interested in AMD's new Athlon GE series as they are competitively priced against Intel's G series. Unfortunately AMD doesn't appear to provide any Windows 7 drivers for APUs. To my knowledge, around 50% of Windows based PCs are still running Windows 7 so I hope AMD reconsider their support stance for Windows 7.

if you need to use Windows 7, get Windows 10 pro and use Hyper-V to run Windows 7 for legacy applictions