No, there you're pointing out the actual difference between Apple and Microsoft. I don't even remember the last time I directly paid for a Mac OS (10.6?). Nowadays it all comes down through the Mac App Store, a usb key, or a rescue partition. Periodically Apple discontinues which hardware sets it supports. You can still boot that same hardware on whatever the latest, most patched OS that will run on it - from Apple. They sell hardware. Intel does the exact same thing with their processors. Microsoft does the same with its products - which are software based.
Per Microsoft, Windows XP is EOL. It doesn't matter what hardware you want to run it on - Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft. Are they attempting to push people to newer versions of Windows? Absolutely. They're essentially defining their product.
This seems different on the outside but I'm not sure it is. I think they've said something about Skylake/above functions differently enough to require significant changes to Windows 7.
Per Microsoft, Windows XP is EOL. It doesn't matter what hardware you want to run it on - Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft. Are they attempting to push people to newer versions of Windows? Absolutely. They're essentially defining their product.
This seems different on the outside but I'm not sure it is. I think they've said something about Skylake/above functions differently enough to require significant changes to Windows 7.