[Katsunami]

As far as I know, at least from the past, Microsoft has never stated that you had to have (or NOT have) a specific CPU. Their requirements have always been very generic. The Windows 7 site says this:

1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor*
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

These have always been the requirements. This basically comes down to having a Pentium III Tualatin CPU, a 20GB hard drive and a GeForce 4 (DirectX9 compatible) graphics card.

This is a vintage computer from 2002.

PS: It *IS* non-trivial to install Windows 7 RTM on a Skylake-equipped computer. The chipsets and mainboards have too many features that Windows 7 does not readily support without adding drivers beforehand, making installation of the RTM version impossible. Microsoft is at least right about that.

The RTM version as sold on DVD does not have support for NVME-type SSD's, and it does not support Skylake's XHCI-protocol (eXtensible Host Controller Interface), used to control USB-devices. Windows 7 supports up to EHCI (Enhanced Controller Interface), but Skylake has dropped everything older than XHCI. This means that Windows 7 RTM is unable to use USB-devices during installation. Your USB mouse, keyboard, CDROM, and sticks won't work, and also, you won't be able to install Windows 7 on a new NVME SSD.

If you want to install Windows 7 on a Skylake computer using the RTM DVD, you will have to rip the CD, slipstream the correct drivers first, and create a new DVD.

Windows 7 obviously can be installed and run on Skylake (my laptop came with 7), but it can be a difficult task. (And... oh, if you have a UEFI-based computer and you want to use the UEFI features, you'll have to have the 64-bit version. The 32-bit version does not support UEFI.)

PSS: Some manufacturers foresaw the problem with Intel dropping EHCI-support and added an EHCI-to-XHCI front-end chip on their mainboards. It intercepts the EHCI communication coming from Windows 7, and passes it on to the Skylake XHCI chipset.

Windows 7 will thus work with these Skylake motherboards, and requires slipstreamed NVME drivers only; and only if you're installing on a new NVME SSD. If you use a normal SATA-connected SSD, you can install Windows 7 as is. This is nothing new. When installing Windows on a very new, or unknown storage device, it has always needed either slipstreamed drivers, of you must load them from floppy using the F6 key during installation. IIRC, Vista was the first Windows to be able to load these drivers from USB. (Which, as said, is something you can't do with Windows 7 'cause of the non-supported XHCI interface. Thus you will need to have an already working computer to create a customized Windows 7 installation disk.)

Manufacturers of storage add-on cards often call these drivers "F6 drivers", even today.