By Friday, the end of this week, Intel plans to remove old drivers and BIOS updates from its official website.
"This download, BIOS Update [BLH6710H.86A] 0163, will no longer be available after November 22, 2019 and will not be supported with additional functional, security updates, or other updates," reads a message posted on the download for one of the components.
“Intel recommends that users of BIOS Update [BLH6710H.86A] 0163 uninstall and/or discontinue use as soon as possible,” the message continues.
The downloads are drivers and BIOS updates for Intel desktop components and motherboards released by the company in the 1990s and early to mid-2000s.
Downloads for hundreds of components are believed to have been affected, from motherboards to NIC cards and graphics cards.
Most drivers are for versions of Windows such as Windows 98, ME, XP, and older versions of Windows Server – old versions of the Windows operating system that have reached the end of their life.
All of the components and motherboards were released years ago, and Intel stopped providing firmware updates as a result. Their website simply hosts the older files for convenience.
Users who need drivers to reinstall old workstations use Intel's official website to obtain the latest versions of drivers or BIOS updates.
Now, the files will be removed, in a move that has caused anger with many system still running older systems using older Intel tools.
One tweet perfectly describes the frustration and anger of most system administrators when they hear about Intel's plans.
“Dear hardware companies: You were supposed to host drivers until sunset or go out of business ,not because you got tired of hosting 20 Megabytes,” one user said on Twitter in September when Intel introduced the EOL message in the Download Center.
“I can’t believe this, I’ve been recommending Intel products for years because of their long-term support,” one user said in a HackerNews discussion. “Does it really cost that much to host files for casual downloaders?”
The company's move is highly controversial. As the two users mentioned above point out, most users expect a hardware to host drivers forever, despite the fact that the product itself is reaching end-of-life and is no longer commercially available.
In the meantime, there are a few things owners of older Intel hardware should do. The first is to download the driver and BIOS updates for their respective components and motherboards from Intel's official website, while they're still available.
Second, they should stay away from downloading Intel drivers and BIOS updates from untrusted “download websites.” As several users commenting on HackerNews pointed out, this is the perfect time and occasion for malware writers to create websites offering malware for older Intel hardware.
