[georgyo]

Intel has no reason to not release those drivers for it. Windows might not ship the drivers themselves, or make it "just work." But that's not in Intel's interest, they want to sell chips. They don't care what you run on it, and will support whatever has a large enough install base.

Microsoft is the one not doing the supporting. Which means that if something doesn't work, and you create an issue with them (think enterprise customers) their official response is going to be that you need to upgrade. This is perfectly reasonable and Apple does this all the time. There is no reason why older iDevices can't install newer IOS, besides pushing people to upgrade.

I don't see Windows 7 "not working" with Kaby Lake. Maybe things that require deeper OS support, like Optane as DDR chips, or booting off Optane. Maybe Thunderbolt 3 won't work right. But for the most part, most things will work just fine.

Think of it this way, if OSes had to actively support new chipsets, you would need to buy/get new install disks with every release. That just doesn't happen.

[vertex-four]

Linux definitely does have to get updates for new chipsets, mostly around power management features. iGPUs also tend to get updated, which needs new drivers. Old kernels will still run, but they will use more power than necessary and not have access to many new features.

[jschwartzi]

Indeed. In the past when I've needed to add support for something during installation, I've never had a problem slipstreaming it in.