> I wondered when Matthew Garrett would pipe up and deepthroat Microsoft again. He duly obliges.

Personal attacks (and that's an ugly one) are not allowed on HN. Nor is name-calling ("so stupid it isn't even funny, but Matthew likes defending stupid").

We ban accounts that do this, so please don't. You can easily make your point civilly and we'll all be better for it.

Not being first hardly makes it ok.

I don't know about Microsoft and Lenovo laptops. I do know that you have to follow the HN rules the same as everyone else does. I wouldn't call that 'censorship' any more than, say, traffic laws, but YMMV. The point is, if you can't or won't be civil then you can't comment here.

I haven't looked but I also very much doubt there is a Windows 7 driver for this.......... ;-).

....and indeed, there are only Windows 10 drivers.

http://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/products/Laptops-and-netbook...

WTF is that URL by the way?

Many Skylake systems are like this today. You can boot Windows 7 but there are no USB 2.0 ports so you have no keyboard or mouse. You have to go through an incredibly tedious procedure of slipstreaming USB 3 drivers into the installation, and you don't always know whether you have the right ones from Intel's site.

Restricting disk access seems like a much more foolproof way of closing this off ;-). Businesses can't buy this laptop and use their volume license of Windows 7, which is entirely the point. They can also build in obsolescence in the future by removing driver support.

You might be able to get an OS they're not keen on installed, but if you can't see the disk you've got no chance of getting it installed ;-).

That should be you might be able to get an OS they're not keen on booted, of course.