Microsoft finally broke its silence on the status of devices built on the Intel Clover Trail CPU family.
Owners of those devices who had taken advantage of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer discovered recently that those PCs were unable to upgrade to the Windows 10 Creators Update, released in April 2017 and now rolling out widely to the installed base of Windows 10 PCs.
In an e-mailed statement, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed today that no software fix is on the way. But in a major shift in its “Windows as a Service” policy, Microsoft agreed to continue delivering security updates to those devices for another six years. Under the existing policy, those security updates would have ended in early 2018.
Support for hardware has to end at some point, but this seems rather crude.
If Windows 10 development goes on for years to come, the system requirements are inevitably going to go up, as MS keeps adding ads and other shit to the OS that nobody wants
Actually the requirements went LOWER on latter iteration. The “new black” [orange?] is running legacy on virtual-ized mode. So, as long a new code, you’re lighter.
I have an Atom powered “netbook” that shipped with W10. It was basicaly unusable due to a mere 2GB RAM and 16GB eMMC.
THe minimum specs to run W10 properly are a modern Pentium, 4GB RAM and 64GB disk space. An i3, 8GB RAM and an SSD is probably a more realistic case for mainstream users.
You can still install the latest and greatest Linux kernel on ancient hardware.
My sister is still running a Core 2 desktop with Xubuntu 16.04.
Last year I ran Xubuntu 16.04 (albeit slowly) on a 2005 era Pentium M laptop with 768MB RAM.
That’s generally true, but in this particular case the GPU (the source of the issue on Windows) is also poorly supported in Linux. You can get by with the vesa driver if you don’t do a lot of media consumption, however this CPU/GPU combo is most prevalent in tablets and 2-in-1s designed for media consumption. Also, this isn’t “ancient hardware”, devices with this chipset were built and sold between 2012-2016, and there may still be new old stock in a lot of places.
I’ve owned a couple of netbooks with this CPU/GPU and performance was terrible in Linux, and barely passable in Windows.
Edited 2017-07-21 01:39 UTC
might have been the case but look again Linux support especially for atom is just fine…
No he is right, if it has a PowerVR GPU (like some atoms do) then driver support is poor no matter the operating system. Imagination Technologies do not seem to be helping themselves with this tactic.
Pushing updated driver to the Microsoft update costs a lot of money for a hardware vendor. So there is a dead end for PowerVR GPU paired with Intel Atom as nobody wants to spend money there…
It is not like Intel are short of cash (are just blocked by Imagination)…
Edited 2017-07-21 12:03 UTC
Intel is just as guilty here. They voluntarily licensed PowerVR tech without securing the rights to develop a functioning driver. Nobody forced them.
Also the situation did not take Intel by surprise. Clover Trail was actually the fourth generation PowerVR Atom after Poulsbo, Oak Trail, and Cedar Trail.
For the CPU itself, yes, Linux works fine and you can get by with the vesa video driver if you just work in the terminal all day. However, the GPU paired with that CPU is a PowerVR model made by Imagination Technologies, not an in-house Intel GPU, and the Linux driver for that part is incomplete and buggy. Imagination dropped support for Linux long before they dropped it for Windows.
Ironically, the older PowerVR atoms are actually better supported under Linux with the reverse-engineered gma500 driver.
Intel and PowerVR refusing to support the chip with proper drivers is a disgrace to both companies.
Why would anyone care when you have AMD/ATI that provide both CPU and GPU with actually pretty good documentation/driver support, either for Windows or Linux ?
Atom the processor(s) or Atom the platform? Do you run Linux on one of the affected processors?
I’ve used a netbook before that have more or less crappy support from Linux, Windows ran somewhat better but not good.
Core2 isn’t ancient. My work machine runs 1607 and has a core2quad Q9950
That CPU was first introduced in 2008. How old is ancient?
Speaking as an understanding friend, I just retired my workstation that had the same CPU. It still worked well on GNU/Linux.
Clover Tail was exclusively a Windows 8 chip back when it was released.
Had a TF101 from Asus with those specs and running Linux on it was anything but “smooth”, starting from BIOS and UEFI restrictions.
Since Intel discontinued Atom chips I didn’t expect for it to have great support in the long run..
Yet another reason why I told my customers that they should stick with AMD as those that did? Can now run any Windows from 7-10 (thanks to the Crimson beta river they released when they dropped support or their VLIW GPUs) and opening up their code for Linux that avenue is covered as well.
I put my money where my mouth was and have a EEE PC 1215b (B for AMD Brazos) that I use as my workbook for service calls, runs Win 8.1 great and am currently trying various distros to see which I prefer and the netbook just purrs like a kitten, so good in fact when I’m not using it for service calls its in my living room being used as an HTPC. I don’t even wanna know how using an Atom from 2011 would feel trying to run 1080P over HMI….did those Atom chips even have HDMI?
the TF101 was an ARM based Android tablet (I still have mine). are you by chance thinking of the T100?
What a rotten situation. The back story seems to be that a hardware partner refuses to upgrade their GPU drivers, preventing the systems from going to the Creators Update and beyond.
Even that is dubious, I mean shif, you’re telling me there’s no other way forward because of some unspecified driver model change? If believe it if this wasn’t the OS vendor who went to great lengths to ensure application compatibility. This is just hanging wringing and laziness in my opinion.
What a bad joke this whole situation is. I was wrong in initially defending Clovertrail. This is a raw deal and precisely the type of things people here (who I disagreed with) worry about. I was wrong.
And holy crap Microsofts product support lifecycle is a confusing mess, who even understands this crap.
This is because Microsoft & Apple provide no end-of-life policy beyond “bit-rot and malware” because they do not separate feature upgrades from security patches.
This is never going to change until laws mandate that a product must be supported for ‘n’ number of years (hopefully at least 6) and that’s never going to change until we get the malware apocalypse with all these outdated phones, devices and even cars now.
Really? You post this in response to an article that states security updates will be provided but not feature update – making your post obviously wrong.
Wouldn’t dare to use those on critical points. Call it paranoia, but the “bastardization” MS did of this particular design has to have some solid -engineering background.
This is one of the reasons I don’t like Apple, forced obsolescence.
I find it sad and amusing people will defend M$ removing features and patches for ulterior motives. As I.T. people we’re tasked with dealing with this on customers behalf. Workarounds and excuses only go so far.