Microsoft Commits To 6 Years of Firmware Updates For New and Some Older Surface PCs (windowscentral.com) 12
Microsoft has updated its Surface support documentation, committing to supporting some Surface Pcs with six years of firmware updates -- up from the four years it originally offered. Windows Central reports: The updated documentation states that any Surface PC shipped after January 1, 2021 will receive six years of firmware updates. Surface devices shipped before that date will remain on four years of firmware updates. This means Surface Pro 7+, Surface Go 3, Surface Laptop 4, Surface Laptop Go 2, Surface Studio 2+, Surface Laptop Studio 1 and newer have all had their support cycles extended by two additional years.
Here's what the documentation says:
- For devices released before January 1, 2021: Surface devices will receive driver and firmware updates for at least four years from when the device was first released. In cases where the support duration is longer than four years, an updated end-of-servicing date will be published before the date of the last servicing.
- For devices released on and after January 1, 2021: Surface devices will receive driver and firmware updates for at least six years from when the device was first released. In cases where the support duration is longer than six years, an updated end-of-servicing date will be published before the date of the last servicing.
Here's what the documentation says:
- For devices released before January 1, 2021: Surface devices will receive driver and firmware updates for at least four years from when the device was first released. In cases where the support duration is longer than four years, an updated end-of-servicing date will be published before the date of the last servicing.
- For devices released on and after January 1, 2021: Surface devices will receive driver and firmware updates for at least six years from when the device was first released. In cases where the support duration is longer than six years, an updated end-of-servicing date will be published before the date of the last servicing.
Re: (Score:2)
Oracle releases one word press release:
"Pussies!"
will they get 6 years of full windows updates? (Score:2)
will they get 6 years of full windows updates?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
but windows 11 has cpu lockouts (Score:2)
but windows 11 has cpu lockouts
Less restrictive than before (Score:2)
Re: will they get 6 years of full windows updates? (Score:2)
With a bit of playing around or if you donâ(TM)t care about functional drivers, perhaps, officially a lot of hardware got retired around Windows 10 1809 and every other feature release since. It is perfectly possible that a Windows 10 box is stuck in some feature release because the Microsoft approved GPU driver wonâ(TM)t update beyond that.
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will they get 6 years of full windows updates?
Define "windows updates". Are you talking about new OSes which most people could not give a flying **** about, or are you talking about support / security updates, which Microsoft has *always* provided at a length of more than 6 years for their Surface Line (at least the x86 models).
I have an older Surface device I no longer use, and without any announcements on this policy it has received 12 years of updates and supports.
But in any case this isn't remotely what the article is about. Windows != firmware.
Sub-components (Score:2)
I talked to a friend about this. He works on hardware designs for a living.
The primary issue is that contracts for the sub-components need to contain the language for the longer support term. Trying to add that back in later will get quite expensive. There are plenty of components in your PC or phone with their own firmware blobs. All that needs support and drivers for the operating system of the day (and days gone by).
So it can take a while to increase the support lifetime.
Six years sounds pretty good.
Surface Pro (2017) just got two firmware updates (Score:2)
And that's already over 6 years old. Microsoft was pretty good at this already.