After it was first announced to the world last month, the new Microsoft Surface 3 has then made its way to our shores last Saturday. The 10.8-inch full HD Windows 8.1 tablet is a beautiful productivity machine but in case you are more adventurous than average users and plan to install Windows 10 Technical Preview into your shiny new Surface 3, you might want to reconsider the plan once again.
This is due to the fact that the Windows 10 driver for the Atom x7 processor that is equipped into Surface 3 is still not yet available from Intel. The revelation was made by Barb Bowman, a moderator at Microsoft Community support forums:
“Please do NOT try to install Windows 10 on the new Surface 3. There are no drivers for the Intel x5/x7 Atom processors. There are no drivers in the Preview Build because Intel has not yet provided drivers. There is no block/check for these processors in current builds. Timing of availability for drivers is unknown as Intel is still working on the needed drivers for the new chipset and processors.”
Few days prior to the statement above, Neowin has pointed out that the latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview is indeed quite unstable on Surface 3. Since the operating system is still under development, this is not exactly a surprise though.
Given how Intel Atom x7 as well as Intel Atom x5 might be used by manufacturers out there to power their upcoming Windows tablets, we do believe that the necessary Windows 10 drivers for these processors should be available by the time the new operating system is ready for the market.
For now, you might want to either avoid installing it or proceed with caution. If you still wonder how Windows 10 looks like on the new Surface 3, check out this brief hands-on done by Paul Thurrott of Supersite for Windows.
[Source: Microsoft Community support forums via Windows Central and WinBeta]
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