14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft won’t release the Windows 10 Creators Update to devices running on Intel Atom Clover Trail processors, and the company says that instead, it will continue supporting the Anniversary Update on these systems until January 2023.
News of devices not getting the Windows 10 Creators Updates emerged earlier this week, after we previously covered the issue in April this year, just after Microsoft started the rollout of the new OS version.
At that time, a number of chips, like Atom Z2760, Atom Z2520, Atom Z2560, and Atom Z2580 were listed as unsupported by the Creators Update, but Microsoft said it was working with partners to address this and make version 1703 of Windows 10 available for these CPUs as well.
Security updates until 2023
But in a statement released today, Microsoft confirms that Intel Atom Clover Trail chips won’t get the Creators Update because of the hardware limitations.
“They require additional hardware support to provide the best possible experience when updating to the latest Windows 10 feature update, the Windows 10 Creators Update. However, these systems are no longer supported by Intel (End of Interactive Support), and without the necessary driver support, they may be incapable of moving to the Windows 10 Creators Update without a potential performance impact,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Microsoft explains that instead of shipping the Creators Update to these devices, it will continue supporting the Anniversary Update, which is available for all of them, until January 2023. This is the same end of support date as for Windows 8.1, which is the operating system that all the devices running on Intel Atom Clover Trail processors were powered by at launch.
This means that while all these PCs will continue to get security patches for another 6 years, no new features would be shipped, so sooner or later replacing them with new devices capable of running the latest version of Windows 10 would still be needed.