Microsoft Says Windows Embedded Devices Must Be Updated to Windows 10 By 2017

As you may remember, Microsoft is curtailing support for Intel-based Skylake PCs, the company now says Windows Embedded devices using Intel’s sixth-generation Core Skylake processors are no exception. Microsoft has announced that such devices will need to be upgraded to Windows 10 by July of 2017.

Microsoft announced this week that Windows Embedded users aren’t going to receive any leeway from the company for their affinity to stick with an older desktop operating system version. The company says that Windows Embedded users — much like any other Windows PC user – must upgrade to Windows by mid-2017. For those unaware, Windows Embedded machines are those that are used in point-of-sale systems, health and other industries.

“Through July 17, 2017, Skylake devices running Windows Embedded 7, 8 and 8.1 will be supported according to the lifecycle support policy for those products. During the 18-month support period, these systems should be upgraded to Windows 10 to continue receiving support after the period ends,” the company wrote in a support document.

Failure to update to Windows 10, the desktop operating system it released in July last year, will make users ineligible to receive critical security updates. The company insists that it will seed updates provided it does not risk the “reliability or compatibility” of the Windows Embedded machines running on Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that all new processors moving forward need to support the latest Windows platform at that time for support. The company’s move comes part of its growing efforts to ensure that every machine is powered by Windows 10. As of January 2016, more than 200 million devices worldwide are actively running Windows 10. Microsoft is aiming to get 1 billion devices to run Windows 10 in the next two-three years.