Over the weekend, an installer for Microsoft's upcoming Chromium-based Edge browser was leaked and users have been digging into its new features to see what has been added and how well it performs. Of course, when testing an upcoming software, people test it against products its not designed for.

While a leaked support page has stated that the new Microsoft Edge Insider preview would only work on 64 bit versions of Windows 10, tests show that the leaked build also run on Windows 7.

Not only does it run, but it runs well with a speedy performance and compatibility that you would expect from a Chrome based browser.

New Edge running on Windows 7

As Chromium works perfectly fine on Windows 7, it is not surprising that the Chromium-based Edge would work as well.

Even though Windows 7 becomes officially unsupported on January 14th, 2020, it still retains a 34% market share in the desktop operating system space and Microsoft realizes that the enterprise is not fully on board with the jump to Windows 10. Due to this Microsoft has started offering paid-for extended Windows 7 security updates for the enterprise through 2023.

Knowing that Windows 7 is here to stay in some form or another for at least a few more years, it makes sense to allow the new browser to run on Windows 7 and wall off any services that require Windows 10.

Update 3/26/19:

Updated article to reflect that Microsoft does plan on releasing Edge for Windows 7.

Based on the leaked support document, I had thought that Microsoft would only be releasing the new Edge on Windows 10. According to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, they do plan on supporting Edge on Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and macOS.

Hi. MS has said it will bring Chromium-based Edge to Windows 7, 8.1, 10 and macOS. It's not for Win 10 only: https://t.co/T48DJmJvIW — Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley) March 26, 2019

It appears that the support document was only referring to the Microsoft Edge Insider preview builds as only working on Windows 10, which we now know is not accurate.

Thanks Mary Jo!