In January of this year, Redmond said it would cut off extended support for Windows 7 and 8.1 on Skylake on July 2017. However In March, Microsoft modified the extended support cut-off date to July 2018, noting that all "critical" updates would be supported through 2020 (for Windows 7) and 2023 (for 8.1).  At the time it was seen as a push to get people to move to Windows 10.

Now Microsoft has broadened the category of updates that Windows 7 and 8.X users get so that they will not just get "critical" only updates. Today's latest change to the Skylake support cut-off dates also applies to Windows Embedded 7, 8 and 8.1 devices.

Supported devices running Skylake will get all applicable security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1 until the end of support dates for each product.

The change could be for a number of reasons. One of our more conspiracy motivations is that Micosoft's relationship with Intel is not as good as it used to be and the whole idea of tying windows to encourage hardware upgrades for its chum is no longer important.

Redmond says that the change is "designed to help our customers purchase modern hardware with confidence, while continuing to manage their migrations to Windows 10."

Today's support cut-off changes do not affect devices that will use Intel's upcoming 7th generation Intel Core and AMD's upcoming Bristol Ridge processors. Those devices, as previously announced, will require Windows 10.