[creshal]

> Does Linux add support for newer Intel and AMD chips in old kernels? No.

Yes. All big distributions backport drivers to older kernels they still support. And Microsoft still supports Windows 7 and 8, and has to do so until 2020/2023 or heads will roll, no matter what their marketing wants people to think.

[skriticos2]

Windows 8 has almost no corporate adoption, so the interesting data point is 2020 and 7, which is just a bit more than three years away. Migration targets should be somewhere around 2019 (last minute really), but procurement for new machines with Windows 10 builds might start being rolled out in the first half of 2019 with most corps, which is practically just 2 years away. Factor in that the next generation chips still need some time to get to marked and you have a rather narrow gap, especially with corps that have a more conservative hardware policy. I don't see the issue here. I just hope that the Windows 10 rolling update will reduce the enterprise upgrade anxiety.

[cm2187]

My guess is that corporates will stick to Win7 the way they sticked to WinXP. I just go upgraded last month from XP to 7...

Though the 32bit to 64bit was probably a big part of the big step between XP and 7.

[gruez]

small nitpick: the 2020/2023 dates are for extended support, where they only provide security patches. But you're right in that windows 8.1 at least is still in mainstream support, so they will accept feature requests (until 2018).

[kyberias]

Microsoft supporting Windows 7 and 8 does not mean implementing support for all future HW. They had HW requirements on launch and Microsoft supports that set of HW.

[astrodust]

Supporting Windows 7 on hardware from that era and making it forward compatible are two different things.

If Windows 7 came with your machine you're covered. If you're looking to build or buy a new system you need to go Windows 10. If you don't like that, you have other non-Windows options.