One aspect of this I wondered about at the time is that it happened in the wake of Meltdown/Spectre. Ideally it required AMD/intel to produce new microcode for their CPUs and motherboard manufacturers to produce new BIOS firmware for all applicable boards if you wanted to reduce risk before the OS can upload firmware. Presumably everyone wanted to avoid the tech site headlines about patches to workaround vulnerabilities reducing performance in their products, and they don't want "knows enough to be dangerous" geeks staying unpatched so counterstrike gets 156fps instead of 123fps.
So, my guess is MS had discussions with AMD/intel on how much of their products they were willing to support for the lifespan of the OS, and likewise AMD/intel talked to motherboard manufacturers for a similar assurance as part of whatever partnership/licensing is agreed there. It's probably not helped by how on the consumer side ongoing support is a burden, they make money by selling new products.
keyringlight|2 years ago
So, my guess is MS had discussions with AMD/intel on how much of their products they were willing to support for the lifespan of the OS, and likewise AMD/intel talked to motherboard manufacturers for a similar assurance as part of whatever partnership/licensing is agreed there. It's probably not helped by how on the consumer side ongoing support is a burden, they make money by selling new products.
niutech|2 years ago