[SOLVED] how long will windows 20h2/future builds be supported with basic gpu drivers

Pc6777

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im worried eventfully Microsoft will do something I don't like or drop support for a program(just look at securerom and safedisk for example.) I hoard the isos in case this happens so i can always run dual boot/a vm and install an old version and never let it touch the internet or call home to update and use the vm to run offline programs. how long will current windows builds get basic gpu drivers? will future nvidia/amd drivers for future gpus work on the current windows build, the kernel is the same so I would assume they would install? and which brand(amd or nvidia) has better legacy support?
 
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will future nvidia/amd drivers for future gpus work on the current windows build, the kernel is the same so I would assume they would install?
That is more a question for the hardware makers, windows will support the drivers provided they are supplied to Microsoft. Most Hardware makers don't support their stuff forever, that is the problem, its got nothing to do with windows. Some driver makers specify version numbers of windows 10 that their drivers won't work below, that has nothing to do with Microsoft.
Obviously I can't see into future

and which brand(amd or nvidia) has better legacy support?

Choosing between AMD & Nvidia for legacy support is tough. You better just choosing a driver number that works now and...

Colif

Win 11 Master
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will future nvidia/amd drivers for future gpus work on the current windows build, the kernel is the same so I would assume they would install?
That is more a question for the hardware makers, windows will support the drivers provided they are supplied to Microsoft. Most Hardware makers don't support their stuff forever, that is the problem, its got nothing to do with windows. Some driver makers specify version numbers of windows 10 that their drivers won't work below, that has nothing to do with Microsoft.
Obviously I can't see into future

and which brand(amd or nvidia) has better legacy support?

Choosing between AMD & Nvidia for legacy support is tough. You better just choosing a driver number that works now and copy that somewhere for the future.
AMD have legacy drivers but its 1 driver for every AMD GPU below a certain GPU number. and if your GPU doesn't work well with it, tough luck. They also have the regular drivers for newer cards that may support their features more closely
Nvidia just have the one driver but you can likely get older versions of it pretty easy. I find if card is about 2 or more generations old you best off not bother updating gpu drivers but stick with one that works now.
 
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Pc6777

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Generally a particular Win 10 version goes off support after 18 months.
3 semi annual updates.
This, of course, can change at any time.

"safedisk"?
That was a 20 year old thing(1998), discontinued a decade ago(2009).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SafeDisc
securerom or something, games as late as 2008 dont work, i don't need support because I just want to be able to run an older build offline if need be as a vm or dual boot.
 

Pc6777

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That is more a question for the hardware makers, windows will support the drivers provided they are supplied to Microsoft. Most Hardware makers don't support their stuff forever, that is the problem, its got nothing to do with windows. Some driver makers specify version numbers of windows 10 that their drivers won't work below, that has nothing to do with Microsoft.
Obviously I can't see into future



Choosing between AMD & Nvidia for legacy support is tough. You better just choosing a driver number that works now and copy that somewhere for the future.
AMD have legacy drivers but its 1 driver for every AMD GPU below a certain GPU number. and if your GPU doesn't work well with it, tough luck. They also have the regular drivers for newer cards that may support their features more closely
Nvidia just have the one driver but you can likely get older versions of it pretty easy. I find if card is about 2 or more generations old you best off not bother updating gpu drivers but stick with one that works now.
hmm, i did an experiment the other day and put current drivers on a windows computer with windows 1607(a 2016 build) and it worked surprisingly, Im hoping it stays like this, the updates do bring changes but the core os stays the same, so I feel the drivers would probably work on an older build, UNLESS, they put up an invisible wall and don't let you install on older builds even tough it would work, which im worried could happen. I have like 20 gigs of gpu drivers archived so i dont have to worry about that, but im worried if lets say i get a rtx 5070 in 2026 or whatever and it sys I need to update os when trying to install drivers on a windows version 20h2 vm.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
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I don't know if they will but there are new driver types, there are now 2 different types of drivers for Realtek audio for instance, one which is the old type driver and another which comes in 2 parts:
  1. driver available from hardware maker
  2. Audio manager comes from Windows store
meaning you can have the drivers but not the means to change settings unless you get both parts.

I don't know if Nvidia or AMD will ever use that approach
 

Pc6777

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I don't know if they will but there are new driver types, there are now 2 different types of drivers for Realtek audio for instance, one which is the old type driver and another which comes in 2 parts:
  1. driver available from hardware maker
  2. Audio manager comes from Windows store
meaning you can have the drivers but not the means to change settings unless you get both parts.

I don't know if Nvidia or AMD will ever use that approach
I hope not, I dont want to have to use windows store for drivers, because you cant save the driver file if you download it from windows store.
 
I dont want to have to use windows store for drivers, because you cant save the driver file if you download it from windows store.
Agree fully. I would never buy a hardware from a brand that only provides drivers/apps via MS store.
Some brands (for peripheral devices, like keyboards and headsets) are quite misleading in this regard. That is, they advertise some "suite" can be downloaded on their web site, but when you click on link there, you get connected to MS store -HyperX is typical example.
 
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Pc6777

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Agree fully. I would never buy a hardware from a brand that only provides drivers/apps via MS store.
Some brands (for peripheral devices, like keyboards and headsets) are quite misleading in this regard. That is, they advertise some "suite" can be downloaded on their web site, but when you click on link there, you get connected to MS store -HyperX is typical example.
like with framework 3.5, you cant save the file to install because there is no "installer" so you need to go online to install/enable, but i found a workaround. if nvidia did something like that I would never buy a nvidia card again. a lot of the time you don't "need" drivers for prerifrels because there's a built in basic driver I think. maybe thats why wont of my special mouse buttons never works when i try and use it lol. im using the basic built in driver.
 

USAFRet

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like with framework 3.5, you cant save the file to install because there is no "installer" so you need to go online to install/enable, but i found a workaround. if nvidia did something like that I would never buy a nvidia card again. a lot of the time you don't "need" drivers for prerifrels because there's a built in basic driver I think. maybe thats why wont of my special mouse buttons never works when i try and use it lol. im using the basic built in driver.
Download .Net Framework 3.5, direct from MS.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21
 
a lot of the time you don't "need" drivers for prerifrels because there's a built in basic driver
Yes, most peripheral devices usually work in default state. But if someone buys keyboard with RGB backlight (for example), then he obviously would wish to control light (color and intensity). But without dedicated driver (app actually) he can't -he's forced to look at rainbow lights traveling across the keyboard (or whatever the default mode is).

PS. Usually one can change RGB on keyboard itself, however settings aren't saved.
 
im worried eventfully Microsoft will do something I don't like or drop support for a program(just look at securerom and safedisk for example.)
As far as I know, Microsoft only blocks apps from installing/running using SmartScreen. And even then, you can simply override(https://www.windowscentral.com/how-fix-app-has-been-blocked-your-protection-windows-10). Besides that, Microsoft doesn't just block apps from running without a good reason. For example, SecureROM and SafeDisk are invasive DRM libraries. They dig themselves into Ring 0 of the OS which opens a huge security hole.

will future nvidia/amd drivers for future gpus work on the current windows build, the kernel is the same so I would assume they would install? and which brand(amd or nvidia) has better legacy support?
That depends on NVIDIA and AMD to continue support, not Microsoft. NVIDIA for example still provides drivers for Windows 7 64-bit. But I imagine they'll start dropping support for that once Windows 7 market share drops to destitute levels.

I don't know if they will but there are new driver types, there are now 2 different types of drivers for Realtek audio for instance, one which is the old type driver and another which comes in 2 parts:
  1. driver available from hardware maker
  2. Audio manager comes from Windows store
meaning you can have the drivers but not the means to change settings unless you get both parts.

I don't know if Nvidia or AMD will ever use that approach
NVIDIA uses this by way of the so-called DCH drivers. If you use a DCH driver, you have to use the Control Panel app from the Microsoft Store. But from what I've seen, it functions pretty much like the regular version.
 

Pc6777

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As far as I know, Microsoft only blocks apps from installing/running using SmartScreen. And even then, you can simply override(https://www.windowscentral.com/how-fix-app-has-been-blocked-your-protection-windows-10). Besides that, Microsoft doesn't just block apps from running without a good reason. For example, SecureROM and SafeDisk are invasive DRM libraries. They dig themselves into Ring 0 of the OS which opens a huge security hole.


That depends on NVIDIA and AMD to continue support, not Microsoft. NVIDIA for example still provides drivers for Windows 7 64-bit. But I imagine they'll start dropping support for that once Windows 7 market share drops to destitute levels.


NVIDIA uses this by way of the so-called DCH drivers. If you use a DCH driver, you have to use the Control Panel app from the Microsoft Store. But from what I've seen, it functions pretty much like the regular version.
Microsoft should have stopped that stuff before it even happened, not let it happen then nuke it later on. if windows 7 driver support was taken away, that would make a lot of people mad they will hopefully keep it for the next few gens at least.
 
Microsoft should have stopped that stuff before it even happened, not let it happen then nuke it later on. if windows 7 driver support was taken away, that would make a lot of people mad they will hopefully keep it for the next few gens at least.
Blame the developers who chose to use the DRM rather than Microsoft. It's not Microsoft's fault that people want to break their OS because they can't code worth <Mod Edit>.

out of curiosity, does deouvo go to ring 0? could games that use it all get nuked in the future?
No. Denuvo is an anti-tamper detection DRM. It doesn't need elevated privileges to read game data.

SafeDisk, SecuROM, and StarForce (adding that here for completion sake) are drivers because they were trying to enforce that you were using an actual optical drive... and then do horrible things to that optical drive.
 

Pc6777

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Blame the developers who chose to use the DRM rather than Microsoft. It's not Microsoft's fault that people want to break their OS because they can't code worth <Mod Edit>.


No. Denuvo is an anti-tamper detection DRM. It doesn't need elevated privileges to read game data.

SafeDisk, SecuROM, and StarForce (adding that here for completion sake) are drivers because they were trying to enforce that you were using an actual optical drive... and then do horrible things to that optical drive.
Yea, I think the denuvo anti cheat is the one that goes to kernal, I don't care for online games so it dosn't really effect me. And what horrible things did they do to the optical drive?
 

Pc6777

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I don't care for online games anyway, I play singleplager games 99.9 percent of the time nowadays. So no singleplager games have any ring 0 stuff? I don't care if my multiplayer games I will never play again get nuked, but if anything happens to my precious singleplager rpgs...