If you own a system with an Intel 6th generation Core processor—more memorably known as Skylake—and run Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you'll have to think about upgrading to Windows 10 within the next 18 months. Microsoft announced today that after July 17, 2017, only the "most critical" security fixes will be released for those platforms and those fixes will only be made available if they don't "risk the reliability or compatibility" of Windows 7 and 8.1 on other (non-Skylake) systems.
The full range of compatibility and security fixes will be published for non-Skylake machines for Windows 7 until January 14 2020, and for Windows 8.1 until January 10 2023.
Next generation processors, including Intel's "Kaby Lake", Qualcomm's 8996 (branded as Snapdragon 820), and AMD's "Bristol Ridge" APUs (which will use the company's Excavator architecture, not its brand new Zen arch) will only be supported on Windows 10. Going forward, the company says that using the latest generation processors will always require the latest generation operating system.
The following is worth noting.
Microsoft's announcement makes no mention of its server operating systems, leaving open the question of whether these will be subject to the same policy. This has the potential to raise hackles: if the Skylake generation Xeon E3-1275 v5, for example, remains supported by the Windows 8.1-equivalent Windows Server 2012 R2, or the Windows 7-equivalent Windows Server 2008 R2 beyond July 2017, then one might very well ask why the desktop counterparts cannot do the same. Conversely, if those processors don't remain supported then companies deploying such servers are going to have to plan for a very hasty upgrade: the server equivalent to Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, isn't even out yet.
The difference between Windows desktop and Windows Server is minimal, especially at the kernel level. The main difference is Digital restrictions management built into the Registry that stops a Desktop from being able to run certain Microsoft Server oriented software. So if the Server versions are exempt from this forced upgrade, it will be clear the only reason is to move desktop users to Windows 10


