Microsoft has confirmed that devices built on Intel Atom CPUs will never be able to upgrade to the Windows 10 Creators Update. In an emailed statement, Microsoft explains that these devices will only get Windows 10 security updates.
Recently, it was revealed that a compatibility issue wouldn’t allow devices running on Intel’s Atom CPUs get the Creators Update. Acer explained in a blog post that Microsoft and Intel were working on a software fix.
However, in its emailed statement Microsoft clarifies that devices running on those Atom CPUs won’t ever get the Creators Update. Instead, those devices will continue running on the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the last version of the OS they can support.
The silver lining provided by Microsoft is the fact that it will continue delivering security updates for those devices until January 2023. Under the existing policy, those security updates would have ended in early 2018.
In fact, Microsoft had to go out of the way and change its “Windows as a Service” policy just for those devices. The company’s idea was to gradually move Windows customers to current versions, but now a big number of devices is out of that club.
What’s next for devices with Intel Atom CPUs
Now that Microsoft has cleared up everything on the matter of the unsupported Intel Atom CPUs, owners of devices running on those processors get their answer. Unfortunately they will not be able to experience the full Windows 10 experience unless they buy a computer that can run the Creators Update.
Certainly, this is a big blow for several users who purchased those devices three or four years ago under the impression that they would support Windows 10. It seems though that a hardware issue made these Intel Atom CPUs incompatible with the Windows 10 Creators Update, blocking customers from upgrading.
In the case you are the owner of such a device, you will only get the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Microsoft will continue providing Windows 10 security updates for your computer until January 2023, and that’s the end of the line.
