Seven Semper Fi: Win7 to get SHA-2 encryption for patches, DirectX 12 for games

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In addition to the “Get Windows 10” nag screens I described yesterday, and a Servicing Stack Update that implements SHA-2 level encryption for future
[See the full post at: Seven Semper Fi: Win7 to get SHA-2 encryption for patches, DirectX 12 for games]

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Raptor007, Morty

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Beware DirectX 12 can not be installed on Windows 7. Only a part of the user runtime module is made available the rest remains a Windows 10 exclusive. This is done in part with a deal for game company Blizzard and the game World of Warcraft. Possible other companies may follow on this deal.

At Microsoft, we make every effort to respond to customer feedback, so when we received this feedback from Blizzard and other developers, we decided to act on it. Microsoft is pleased to announce that we have ported the user mode D3D12 runtime to Windows 7.

W10&11 x64 Pro&Home

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Lugh

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This is certainly unexpected.  I wonder what went on behind the scenes to make this happen.  It seems to me that this is an actual “carrot” reason for WoW customers to upgrade to 10, as opposed to all of the sticks, so why MS would agree at this point in the life of 7 to do this is beyond me.

I wish game makers would just support Vulkan instead of, or in addition to, DirectX 12.  It would make running it in Linux under Wine that much easier, I would think.  I have to say, though, that running WoW on WINE via DXVK works marvelously, more than doubling the frame rate compared to WINE alone.

Back when 10 was new, there were a lot of frame rate comparisons between DX12 and DX11 APIs in games compatible with both.  The general thrust was that AMD GPUs got a significant boost from DX12, while nVidia GPUs were about the same, sometimes with a slight decrease in frame rate with DX12.  Has this changed, I wonder, or is it the AMD users that are seeing this frame rate boost?

 

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Sinclair

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Most games still perform better under DX11 than under DX12.

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HA! I didn’t expect to read that about DX12 today. This might be the closest we’ll get to an admission from Microsoft that after 4 years of abysmal win 10 adoption there’s still a huge user base of win 7 users despite Microsoft trying to convince us otherwise and they cannot ignore it.

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Raptor007

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There is a dark net version of DX12 that works on Windows 7. It was release by person claiming to be an MS employee a few months back that works with Windows 7 but there are some glitches and work around needed note in the release notes.

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Minor correction: SHA-2 is not an “encryption” function. It’s a “hashing” function which is quite different. The purpose of implementing SHA-2 hashing is to ensure that the “signatures” authenticate that updates that come directly from Microsoft were not tampered with during delivery.

Using an older and weaker hash function like SHA-1 or MD5 could allow a determined attacker to modify the update and fool the recipient system into accepting it as genuine.

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AlexEiffel

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No matter how limited this concession is, it’s an encouraging step in the right direction and adds some fuel to the argument that those wanting to retain Windows 7 in a year’s time (the end date for updates may be January but for Defcon followers the effective date is a month or two after that) shouldn’t take any rushed actions in the next few months as MS may have no practical option but to recognise the substantial user base still running Windows 7. That is also reflected in their stated intention to force new upgrade announcements on our machines. They may have said that those can be turned off, but then they said last time that they wouldn’t force upgrades and we all know what happened! We should therefore hold on for a little longer and see if there are any other developments in the coming months.

I still believe that the only sensible option for MS in these circumstances is to delay the end of support for Windows 7 to 2023 when support ends for Windows 8.1. While that remains a pipe-dream at this stage, announcements like those made today suggest that MS are under some pressure in these respects. The next few months will be interesting, that’s for sure.

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Raptor007, Geo

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Well, they have to sweeten these updates enough to get people to take the GWX stuff, don’t they? Kind of like shoving medicine in the middle of a meatball so a dog will eat it.. except the medicine might actually be the disease. Don’t trust ’em.

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I am confused by the language Microsoft uses on “Stand Alone” update in the article.  The update arrived as a security update on WSUS.  I was thinking they meant it would be available for download to test on systems and then in APRIL it would come out the WSUS channel???

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4472027/2019-sha-2-code-signing-support-requirement-for-windows-and-wsus.

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SHA-2 capability for Win7 is being started this month with the Servicing Stack KB4490628 (witch should be installed first, exclusively=by itself), and the SHA-2 patch KB4474419. But SHA-2 will not be required to receive updates until July or August.

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Will Windows 8.1 get DirectX 12?

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Martin Brinkman’s summary of the announcement (see link in original post) says:

It is unclear if the games will use DirectX 12 on Windows 7 only, or if the games will also use it on Windows 8.1. The newer operating system, supported until 2023, is not mentioned once by Microsoft.

Non-techy Win 10 Pro and Linux Mint experimenter

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Ascaris wrote:

It seems to me that this is an actual “carrot” reason for WoW customers to upgrade to 10, as opposed to all of the sticks, so why MS would agree at this point in the life of 7 to do this is beyond me.

Yes this is indeed the carrot and the stick and not just the stick. But this is completely driven by the Game Developers. Companies like Blizzard that have subscription based games like World of Warcraft. Do not want to leave these paying customers behind. They are aware that they have a large Windows 7 user base since these games were made at a time when you only had Windows 7.

Microsoft sells the DirectX 12 Api to these companies so they can bundle it with there games. I am sure Blizzard and Co need to pay a hefty price to make this happen. At the same time Microsoft gets a chance to show one of Windows 10 benefits as a game platform. By doing so Microsoft hopes that users forget or discard any reservation they had about upgrading to Windows 10. Though it remains to be seen how many can be persuaded by shiny things at this point. Regardless they are sure to make a posting in the future how adding this to Windows 7 persuaded a large portion of the Windows 7 user base to switch to Windows 10. No way to check such figures. I am sticking with Windows 7 regardless.

W10&11 x64 Pro&Home

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Hello all,

Regarding  the future of Windows Updates i have a question.

We have WSUS installed on Windows Server 2008 SP2 (not 2008 R2).

Is this version going to get the SHA2 update?

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@bruce.chaser, already got update for checking SHA2 – https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4484071

Prerequisites
Windows Monthly Rollup released March 12, 2019 or later, such as
KB4489880 or higher rollup for Windows Server 2008 SP2 installed.

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bruce.chaser

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