Microsoft Slashes Windows 7 And Windows 8 Support

[servocrow]

Will his affect any of us still using W7 attempting to update our systems using WSUSOFFLINE?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly ... f77e07ef28

http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... indows-10/

I currently use a skylake CPU and W7...so yeah im sort of concerned..

Thanks for the reply.

[aker]

Personally I don't think so. It will most likely be like, that they won't test the updates on newer CPUs.

[Denniss]

Marketing Blablurb to get users switch to Win 10. All they will likely not do is to add functions to adapt Win7/8.1 to new CPU power saving or core-related functions.

[Joe]

It's not a problem, just don't buy new hardware for Windows 7.

Microsoft is only hurting hardware vendors with this, not you.

[Joe]

The announcement makes sense now.

Microsoft is changing Windows 7 and 8.1 to rolling release with "cumulative updates" delivered through Windows Update containing security fixes mixed with non-security patches.

Their plan is to downgrade Windows 7 or 8.1 through this method, until users give up on it. For example these new update packs most likely won't install on Skylake and newer platforms.

Let's see how WSUS is affected by this.

[boco]

There will be a security-only package that's not offered through WU. Probably that's what we will use here (at least as a choice).

[Joe]

Currently it seems to be possible to separate single updates out of patch rollups, for example the July 2016 Windows update client:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... ost1254044

# Advantages #

- allows you to have the WU fix solely without other fixes in the rollup that you may not want or cause you problems
- do not need any prerequisites updates (the whole rollup require servicing stack update KB3020369)
- installation is done normally with DISM tool like any other updates packages
- completely safe, all files are in their original state, the project is just a repacking of files
and the system itself checks files integrity and won't allow the installation if the check failed

[boco]

Yep, the MDL gurus will be able to single out packages from the crowd. It might just be a lot of work. Maybe WZor could host those resulting packages in their cloud (so we have download links for WSUSOU).

[Joe]

I don't think this method viable for oncoming security rollups delivered through WSUS. But I think it's fine for one time non-security-updates like the WU agent hidden inside the July 2016 rollup for Windows 7, which is required for WSUSoffline to function.

Of course one can't use untrusted third party download sources but scripting the extraction might still be an option.

[boco]

Currently WSUSOU installs the complete Rollup as Prereq.

Everyone could download and include abbodi's packages, and then use the DISM calls to install the WU Client on Win7/8. Since it isn't an officially MS-issued package I fear including it by default won't work (cabs are copyrighted). I'm sure abbodi1406 will continue singling-out at least the useful patches. They just need to be made aware to non-MDL members, as reading posts with (download-)links from MDL requires registration.

WSUSOU will use certainly use the security-only package by default. Despite the optional shit and Telemetry, there's usually NO reason to not install security fixes.