Microsoft brings Windows desktop apps to mobile ARM processors
Microsoft isgiving it another go, adding support for ARM processors with Windows. Starting next year, Windows 10 will be able to emulate traditional desktop apps, allowing device creators to build laptops, tablets, and phones that support the millions of existing applications in the Windows world.
Windows 10 on ARM is arriving thanks to a partnership with Qualcomm. Initially, Microsoft will support the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processors, and laptops are expected to be the first devices we’ll see in the market next year. Microsoft is enabling Windows 10 to support ARM chips directly by building an emulator into the operating system. Devices will be able to run x86 win32 applications like Chrome or Photoshop, but Microsoft won’t be emulating x64 variants of these apps. That’s not a huge problem as not many apps have been compiled for x64 instructions, and most that have also have an x86 counterpart. What this means is you’ll be able to buy a lightweight laptop with good battery life and support for Windows desktop apps next year, reports the verge.
“Think of it as the Windows 10 customers know,” explains Microsoft’s Windows and device chief, Terry Myerson, in an interview with The Verge. There will be support for peripherals, applications, and even enterprise capabilities. Microsoft isn’t detailing exactly how its emulation works, but developers won’t have to do anything special to get their apps to run on ARM chips. The regular MSI or EXE packages will work just like they do on machines with Intel chipsets. The differences will be largely in performance. Microsoft will be emulating the CPU instruction set, which means that any apps that are CPU heavy will still have greater performance on Intel-based machines. The rest of the I/O, like memory, storage, or graphics, will be intercepted by the emulator and handled natively by the operating system.
Microsoft is demonstrating its desktop apps on ARM capability with Adobe’s Photoshop software today, but any of the millions of desktop apps will just work according to the company. “I think people are going to have to experience the devices for themselves,” explains Myerson. “I think that for many people it's going to be a very delightful experience.”
So what does this mean for Microsoft’s universal apps? “The Universal app platform is our future platform,” claims Myerson. “At the same time, it's so important to us that all the applications that are written for Windows over the last 25 years continue to run and continue to run well.” Microsoft is now investing fully in both, but it hopes developers will take advantage of universal apps for the better touch, pen, and modern capabilities like head-mounted display support.
Microsoft isn’t revealing a lot of information about this new ARM initiative, but it won’t arrive in time for the Creators Update to Windows 10, expected to launch in March next year. That means we won’t see ARM-powered devices for quite some time. Microsoft is focusing on laptops first, but I asked Myerson about the possibilities for phones to run these desktop apps. “We're thinking about platform that supports small screens, large screens, devices with no screens at all, head-mounted displays, and so what can these device makers build will really be up to them.”
That leaves things really open for device makers to choose what they want to do with this new support, providing that Microsoft has enabled it well across the multiple variants of Windows 10. I also pushed Myerson on what this means for ARM servers in the future, but it’s early days and Microsoft isn’t ready to talk fully about its enterprise plans. Qualcomm wants to take on Intel at the datacenter level, but the performance gaps will need to be closed before that’s ever possible. It won’t be long before mobile will drive the semiconductor industry toward new breakthroughs, and Microsoft is letting the industry know it’s ready to support any change the future brings.
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Useful for those of us with WinPhone

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They should've done this the first time around when releasing Windows RT.
The reason people like Windows is familiarity and compatibility. Windows RT, (having the Windows 8 setup) was unfamiliar and ARM was incompatible with most people's programs. It's no wonder why it failed so hard.
Unfortunately, a complete compatibility layer like this isn't going to really give users a much better experience. If 90% of the applications people run are for x86, the customer basically just wasted their money on a piece of hardware that is almost never running at its full potential. It's kind of like buying a sports car with a chassis made of lead.
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I don't believe this was even possible power-wise. I'm more impressed that Windows have become so light that an ARM CPU can run the full desktop with a seamless translation layer on top. From the video we can also hear him say that they don't modify any apps, so it's a global translation layer that works seamlessly.
The "unfamiliar" part of Windows (UWP), is probably the best app platform existing. Disregarding any store problems that have to do more with deployment, there is no other app platform that can work seamlessly in all form factors, even including the Xbox and Holographs.
We should wait to judge performance, but for a business this could be an immense money saver both in purchasing costs (instead of mobile+laptop+desktop you get a mobile and it's done), and in maintenance (one device vs 2/3).
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Well that's the thing - Windows didn't really become light enough. At the time of it's release, Windows RT required hardware that was relatively powerful. Basically anything worse than a Cortex A9 was either incompatible or too slow. Meanwhile, you could run a full graphical Linux or Android OS on hardware much older or slower. Both OSes had a complete set of optimized software available for users.
Keep in mind, ARM is RISC. It has just recently supported 64-bit and virtualization instructions. It is inherently less capable than x86. If MS expects a comfortable user experience with this compatibility layer, they're probably going to have ARMv8 processors as the minimum requirement. Those are not common and most devices that support those aren't cheap. Basically, they're going to have to recommend 2GHz+ quad cores. At that point, people may as well just go for x86.
Agreed, but that's a big "if". It took forever for companies to transition away from Windows XP - it's going to take even longer to support an entirely new architecture.
Personally, I think these ARM devices would work great as thin clients.
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not a giant step as there is already lot of x86 windows / arm android crossover tool that make one app running on other...
but it's good anyway.