AMD Confirms Ryzen Will Not Officially Support Windows 7

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, February 12, 2017

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has just confirmed that upcoming Ryzen processors will not have official support for Windows 7. This has laid down a final response to reports that suggested a possible driver release for Microsoft's older operating system (OS).

Now that AMD has confirmed that it will not be providing drivers or support for Windows 7, the company's statement has not entirely excluded the aging OS. The company shared that it has validated the processor not just for Windows 10 but also for Windows 7 as well. "However, only support and drivers for Windows 10 will be provided in AMD Ryzen desktop processor production parts," the company's statement continued.

While a large portion of the Windows user base is still running Windows 7 as of last year, both AMD's Ryzen and Intel's Kaby Lake processors have dropped support for any of the older Windows versions. The two competing processor lines would only support Windows 10 — at least.

AMD has gone as far as validating Ryzen for Windows 7, so there are some speculations on whether it would be possible to upgrade a Windows 7 system to the new central processing unit (CPU). Techradar disagrees, citing a common direction between AMD and Microsoft. While the CPU-maker has just confirmed official support to be exclusive to Windows 10, Microsoft has said all the way back from the start of last year that "Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform" for Intel's Kaby Lake, AMD's then-called Bristol Ridge and Qualcomm's 8996 processors.

This news may come as a disappointment to users still on older Windows versions, and especially the sizable segment of PC gamers who prefer their Windows 7. There are still a lot of them, as Technobuffalo checked the stats. Seven-year-old Windows 7 is still the biggest Microsoft platform at 47.2 percent of the market, according to January 2017 figures. Even Windows XP has its own share of hold-outs at 9.17 percent.

Compare that to Windows 10, which accounts for just 25.3 percent, and it would look like AMD could be missing out on a huge chunk of the PC market. The company, however, remains sharply focused on delivering the best performance possible, even if it means specializing on just the newer OS.