A few months ago, Microsoft announced that it would not support AMD’s Ryzen and Intel’s Kaby Lake CPUs in both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. However, we did not expect the company to block the complete usage of its Windows Update tool on those particular systems.
According to reports – as well as Microsoft’s official support page – the Windows Update is not working at all on PC systems equipped with AMD’s Ryzen or Intel’s Kaby Lake CPUs that use Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. This basically means that those with such CPUs will have to either use outdated operating systems that are full of security holes or upgrade to Windows 10.
As Microsoft’s official support page indicates:
Symptoms
When you try to scan or download updates through Windows Update, you receive the following error message:
Unsupported Hardware
Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows and you won’t receive updates.
Additionally, you may see an error message on the Windows Update window that resembles the following:
Windows could not search for new updates
An error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer.
Error(s) found:
Code 80240037 Windows Update encountered an unknown error.
Cause
This error occurs because new processor generations require the latest Windows version for support. For example, Windows 10 is the only Windows version that is supported on the following processor generations:
- Intel seventh (7th)-generation processors
- AMD “Bristol Ridge”
- Qualcomm “8996″
Because of how this support policy is implemented, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 devices that have a seventh generation or a later generation processor may no longer be able to scan or download updates through Windows Update or Microsoft Update.
Resolution
We recommend that you upgrade Windows 8.1-based and Window 7-based computers to Windows 10 if those computers have a processor that is from any of the following generations:
- Intel seventh (7th)-generation “Intel Core” processor or a later generation
- AMD seventh (7th)-generation (“Bristol Ridge”) processor or a later generation
- Qualcomm “8996″ processor or a later generation
To be honest, this is something we’ve never experienced before. Hell, we could even use Intel’s Core i5 and i7 CPUs with even older operating systems that did not support them (like Windows XP) with all of their security updates available.
As a workaround, PC users can use WSUS offline.
Still, those wishing to upgrade to newers CPUs will now also have to think about the cost of upgrading their operating systems!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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