That's a good question, I believe that from reading the article it is more about the CPU architecture than anything else. So in theory, if you had a Skylake CPU on a Z270 mobo, you "should" be able to run Win7/8. But that also means by that theory that if you run a Kabylake CPU on a Z170 mobo, you would be forced to use Win10 in order to get the Windows updates. I don't believe this has to do with BIOS, but change in the way that Microsoft is delivering its Windows Updates. I think they are trying to simplify the back end of things and different CPU architecture means more coding for updates. I kind of understand, but I also see why people are upset, even though I've been running Win10 since the beginning.