• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Microsoft Is Bringing Windows 10 To ARM, x86 Apps Included

Status
Not open for further replies.
This could be a very big deal if people actually use it. But I'm skeptical. I don't ever see myself buying an ARM computer other than a smartphone or something.
 
I guess this means I won't have to give up Windows Boot Camp if Mac ever switches to ARM.

I dont think Mac is going to switch to ARM. I think Apple is crazy enough to keep advancing iOS until they can get Xcode running on ipads and iphones and then iOS will absorb MacOS.
 

MaulerX

Member
Damn, that Surface Phone is about to happen eh? This could be huge. I'm guessing it would be able to run Bluestacks, Amiduos etc...? Steam? That'll be one hell of a phone/cellular device. Bring it on.
 
The big limitation here is that the x86 emulator can only run x86 apps, which is to say, 32-bit x86 apps, not x86_64. Considering how much software is going 64-bit, that's actually a big downside.

I'm also curious what the performance will be like. Notepad or whatever will be fine, but Photoshop? 3D gaming?

as long as mIRC works
 
And that is exactly the point here.

The joke is that it won't work, no one will care, and oh by the way good luck making a dent in the roughly 2 blllion smartphones installed base worldwide at this point.

This will be I think the 4th, yes FOURTH, time that MS has rebooted the Windows platform for phones. There was Windows Mobile, then Windows Phone 7, then Windows Phone 10, and now this is Windows 10 for Cellular PCs. I mean this is like how they keep rebooting the Hulk in the MCU, well I think they've given up on poor Hulk now at this point. He just shows up for Avengers films now and then goes away again. Kind of like how Windows on phones just shows up when a new version of Windows is released and then goes away again come to think of it.
 

hwalker84

Member
The joke is that it won't work, no one will care, and oh by the way good luck making a dent in the roughly 2 blllion smartphones installed base worldwide at this point.

This will be I think the 4th, yes FOURTH, time that MS has rebooted the Windows platform for phones. There was Windows Mobile, then Windows Phone 7, then Windows Phone 10, and now this is Windows 10 for Cellular PCs. I mean this is like how they keep rebooting the Hulk in the MCU, well I think they've given up on poor Hulk now at this point. He just shows up for Avengers films now and then goes away again. Kind of like how Windows on phones just shows up when a new version of Windows is released and then goes away again come to think of it.
You forgot Windows Phone 8
 

dLMN8R

Member
Wow I can't believe we're announcing this already. It's been in the works for a really really long time and I thought we weren't going to talk about this until next year :-D

It's the real deal. Those demos aren't faked. Yes, x86 Photoshop running on a true ARM chip with no modifications of any sort. No sandboxing, no forcing it through the Store, or anything else. It's just a PC on ARM.
 

BeforeU

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
The joke is that it won't work, no one will care, and oh by the way good luck making a dent in the roughly 2 blllion smartphones installed base worldwide at this point.

This will be I think the 4th, yes FOURTH, time that MS has rebooted the Windows platform for phones. There was Windows Mobile, then Windows Phone 7, then Windows Phone 10, and now this is Windows 10 for Cellular PCs. I mean this is like how they keep rebooting the Hulk in the MCU, well I think they've given up on poor Hulk now at this point. He just shows up for Avengers films now and then goes away again. Kind of like how Windows on phones just shows up when a new version of Windows is released and then goes away again come to think of it.

You forgot Windows Phone 8

I don't think you guys understand what rebooting means. That's like saying iOS 5 to iOS 6 is rebooting the OS lol

They have only rebooted twice. Windows Mobile to WP 7 and WP 7 to WP 8.

All WP8 were upgradable to W10 Mobile. All apps were backward compatible.

And yes I am not defending it, even rebooting twice was terrible idea. And WP7 to WP8 transition was painful. Lot of developers and fans gave up on the platform after that move.
 
You forgot Windows Phone 8

Windows Phone 8 was backwards compatible with 7 wasn't it? Or am I remembering incorrectly?

edit: Oh, the post above me. So the second reboot was from 7 to 8, 8 was forwards compatible with 10.

Wow I can't believe we're announcing this already. It's been in the works for a really really long time and I thought we weren't going to talk about this until next year :-D

It's the real deal. Those demos aren't faked. Yes, x86 Photoshop running on a true ARM chip with no modifications of any sort. No sandboxing, no forcing it through the Store, or anything else. It's just a PC on ARM.

Serious question though: Why?

The reason that iOS and Android dominate the tiny screen space is because no one cares about running x86 Photoshop on a phone. I mean, what would you even do with Photoshop on a 5" screen? The minimum screen size for Photoshop is probably a tablet and Windows 10 is already available on x86 tablets like the Surface. The Surface sells more or less in line with it's specialized niche uses, there just aren't that many people who need full-blown Windows on a tablet form factor.

I'm not knocking the technical achievement, running x86 emulation on ARM with any decent speed is a real technical feat. It's just a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. I mean seriously, how many people have looked at their phone and thought, "Damn, I wish this thing was running Windows. I wish I could run Photoshop on my phone."?
 
Never.

You will have to use Continuum on W10M since there are no x86 chips for phones anymore.

It will still probably run "W10M", but there's no functional reason why if the emulation worked ok it couldn't provide a full desktop experience in continuum mode, and possibly even the use of certain programs in regular mode too. You generally wouldn't want to run Windows 32 programs on a tiny high resolution screen, it would look awful with a few exceptions. Certain older games could be a lot of fun if they had some sort of solid UI scaling - but so few do.
 
I'm not knocking the technical achievement, running x86 emulation on ARM with any decent speed is a real technical feat. It's just a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. I mean seriously, how many people have looked at their phone and thought, "Damn, I wish this thing was running Windows. I wish I could run Photoshop on my phone."?

All the healthcare software the hospitals I work for is exclusive to windows. And as mobile continues to grow it would be great for care givers to have access to a lot of it from their phone.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Windows Phone 8 was backwards compatible with 7 wasn't it? Or am I remembering incorrectly?

edit: Oh, the post above me. So the second reboot was from 7 to 8, 8 was forwards compatible with 10.



Serious question though: Why?

The reason that iOS and Android dominate the tiny screen space is because no one cares about running x86 Photoshop on a phone. I mean, what would you even do with Photoshop on a 5" screen? The minimum screen size for Photoshop is probably a tablet and Windows 10 is already available on x86 tablets like the Surface. The Surface sells more or less in line with it's specialized niche uses, there just aren't that many people who need full-blown Windows on a tablet form factor.

I'm not knocking the technical achievement, running x86 emulation on ARM with any decent speed is a real technical feat. It's just a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. I mean seriously, how many people have looked at their phone and thought, "Damn, I wish this thing was running Windows. I wish I could run Photoshop on my phone."?


It harkens back to the days when Windows was "intended" to run on any arch of the time (Alpha, _86, PowerPC, yadda yadda). The fact that _86 and Windows became intertwined was more a product of history than an actual intent on their part.
 

Azih

Member
Serious question though: Why?
Cheap lightweight laptops and hybrids that can replace your work provided laptop.

A single phone sized device that can dock into a full no compromises PC environment and behave like a smartphone otherwise. Don't even need to carry two devices.

Enterprise should eat this stuff up. They wouldn't even need to worry about their terrible legacy desktop apps. They'll just run.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Wow I can't believe we're announcing this already. It's been in the works for a really really long time and I thought we weren't going to talk about this until next year :-D

It's the real deal. Those demos aren't faked. Yes, x86 Photoshop running on a true ARM chip with no modifications of any sort. No sandboxing, no forcing it through the Store, or anything else. It's just a PC on ARM.

Thought this would be a Build thing. Pretty awesome though.
 

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Wow I can't believe we're announcing this already. It's been in the works for a really really long time and I thought we weren't going to talk about this until next year :-D

It's the real deal. Those demos aren't faked. Yes, x86 Photoshop running on a true ARM chip with no modifications of any sort. No sandboxing, no forcing it through the Store, or anything else. It's just a PC on ARM.

This is amazing stuff.

Serious question though: Why?

The reason that iOS and Android dominate the tiny screen space is because no one cares about running x86 Photoshop on a phone. I mean, what would you even do with Photoshop on a 5" screen?

You wouldn't use PS on your phone, you'd plug your phone into a dock with a mouse, keyboard and monitor and use it as an ultra portable PC.

For MANY people a phone would be powerful enough for the things they use a computer for.
 
All the healthcare software the hospitals I work for is exclusive to windows. And as mobile continues to grow it would be great for care givers to have access to a lot of it from their phone.

It's not at all practical. The hospitals and clinics already have regular Windows terminals installed in the rooms anyways. The use case for needing to look at the patient's chart right now in the hallway is pretty nonexistent. The providers have offices, the conference rooms have PCs, etc. At home, the providers are usually offered a VPN to access the local network remotely. Also hospital IT is extremely bad and many doctors are really bad with computers as you are well aware. They won't know how to use it even if the IT people there figured out how to deploy it. Just getting some of our doctors to order the medication to the right pharmacy is an exercise in futility.

Cheap lightweight laptops and hybrids that can replace your work provided laptop.

A single phone sized device that can dock into a full no compromises PC environment and behave like a smartphone otherwise. Don't even need to carry two devices.

Enterprise should eat this stuff up. They wouldn't even need to worry about their terrible legacy desktop apps. They'll just run.

You wouldn't use PS on your phone, you'd plug your phone into a dock with a mouse, keyboard and monitor and use it as an ultra portable PC.

For MANY people a phone would be powerful enough for the things they use a computer for.

This seems really impractical unless you plan to have a mouse, keyboard, and monitor installed every place you go just to dock your phone to it.

I honestly can see this having an enterprise use, except that most enterprises refuse to touch Windows 10 with a 10-foot pole because all the UI changes will confuse everyone. So I don't really know how that will go in the near-term when most enterprises want to stay on Win7 because it still looks like Windows before the Metro UI.

Also if your enterprise does somehow provide you with a monitor, mouse, and keyboard for you to use at work locations, and maybe a set for you to use at home, what about when you travel? You can't expect every hotel room on Earth to have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard for you to dock with. There is just nothing practical about this, and that applies to Continuum as well.
 

CDX

Member
I mean they sort of already tried this a few years ago with a version of Windows 8(Windows RT) on the Surface RT, and it failed.

But this might have better x86 app compatibility? I dunno. We'll have to see how well it actually works in the real world and see if people want it.


Wow I can't believe we're announcing this already. It's been in the works for a really really long time and I thought we weren't going to talk about this until next year :-D

It's the real deal. Those demos aren't faked. Yes, x86 Photoshop running on a true ARM chip with no modifications of any sort. No sandboxing, no forcing it through the Store, or anything else. It's just a PC on ARM.
Well that sounds promising.
 
Windows Phone 8 was backwards compatible with 7 wasn't it? Or am I remembering incorrectly?

edit: Oh, the post above me. So the second reboot was from 7 to 8, 8 was forwards compatible with 10.



Serious question though: Why?

The reason that iOS and Android dominate the tiny screen space is because no one cares about running x86 Photoshop on a phone. I mean, what would you even do with Photoshop on a 5" screen? The minimum screen size for Photoshop is probably a tablet and Windows 10 is already available on x86 tablets like the Surface. The Surface sells more or less in line with it's specialized niche uses, there just aren't that many people who need full-blown Windows on a tablet form factor.

I'm not knocking the technical achievement, running x86 emulation on ARM with any decent speed is a real technical feat. It's just a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. I mean seriously, how many people have looked at their phone and thought, "Damn, I wish this thing was running Windows. I wish I could run Photoshop on my phone."?

Cell phones aren't the only form factor running ARM chips. This could make for more really cheap Windows notebooks to compete with Chromebooks, as has been pointed out in this thread. Or tablets with docking capabilities.
 

SFenton

Member
I am absolutely in for this. Can use one device for all my work stuff? This is what I think the future of computing is.

In Panos we trust, my Surface Book is A+, I seriously want a Studio, and I'll sign up for his inevitable phone as well.
 

Guess Who

Banned
I mean they sort of already tried this a few years ago with a version of Windows 8(Windows RT) on the Surface RT, and it failed.

But this might have better x86 app compatibility? I dunno. We'll have to see how well it actually works in the real world and see if people want it.

Windows RT was extremely locked down - it was limited only to "Metro" Windows apps, and the only desktop apps you could use were Internet Explorer and Office. No other existing Windows software ran on it at all. This should be a very different story.
 
Microsoft has been really knocking it out of the park lately with emulation. First with the Xbox 360-Xbox One, now Win32. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually just released the Xbox 360 Emulator on Windows 10 just to have more selling points
 

Azih

Member
Hardware as a service would really take off with Chromebook priced Windows laptops for business. Just pay a subscription and every year you get a new upgraded work laptop.
 
Cell phones aren't the only form factor running ARM chips. This could make for more really cheap Windows notebooks to compete with Chromebooks, as has been pointed out in this thread. Or tablets with docking capabilities.

But there are already really cheap Windows notebooks which sell for $100-150. And the Surface already exists, as do other tablets which also dock from other manufacturers. Those are all already devices which run natively on Intel x86, no need for ARM with an emulator.
 

99Luffy

Banned
Im not sure I get the big deal here. Cant you get MS office in the cloud now. Its available on anything and everything.

And can someone tell me the benefits of ARM in notebooks? If its so great then why arent they a big deal in chromebooks?
 

Azih

Member
But there are already really cheap Windows notebooks which sell for $100-150. And the Surface already exists, as do other tablets which also dock from other manufacturers. Those are all already devices which run natively on Intel x86, no need for ARM with an emulator.
Intel has pretty much abandoned mobile.
 

rrs

Member
Im not sure I get the big deal here. Cant you get MS office in the cloud now. Its available on anything and everything.

And can someone tell me the benefits of ARM in notebooks? If its so great then why arent they a big deal in chromebooks?
Big deal is an x86 emulation layer and a more open W10 on ARM. As for the benefits, it means cheaper win10 tablet/low power devices that can run about anything on a normal PC, along with making large enterprise customers happy. Chromebooks use arm fine as all it needs is Linux and chrome, both of which are tried and true champions on ARM arch.
 

SRG01

Member
How is this different from Microsoft's previous attempts to get x86 applications working on Windows RT? Is it emulation magic instead of a direct port?
 
PPC on x86 for the XBone and now x86 on ARM. Reminders that MS employs some damn good engineers.

How is this different from Microsoft's previous attempts to get x86 applications working on Windows RT? Is it emulation magic instead of a direct port?
Seemingly.
 

FyreWulff

Member
How is this different from Microsoft's previous attempts to get x86 applications working on Windows RT? Is it emulation magic instead of a direct port?

MS's previous attempt was getting everyone to write the programs arch-agnostic in the first place.
 
But there are already really cheap Windows notebooks which sell for $100-150. And the Surface already exists, as do other tablets which also dock from other manufacturers. Those are all already devices which run natively on Intel x86, no need for ARM with an emulator.
x86 devices under 11.6" have stagnated for three years. My 8" Dell V8P 5830 (Bay Trail, 2GB ram) that's three years old is still performance competitive with the newest stuff out. The Cherry Trail update had a GPU improvement that let them put in a 1080p screen, but sacrificed battery life.

It's not even a price issue with me, Core M simply isn't power efficient enough in smaller form factors.
 

dLMN8R

Member
How is this different from Microsoft's previous attempts to get x86 applications working on Windows RT? Is it emulation magic instead of a direct port?

When Windows RT launched, the version of Desktop Office on there was an ARM port with many features stripped out.

This is completely different - it's the exact same version of Office you can use on any computer today, running on an ARM chip. No code changes, no features stripped out, no recompilation necessary, no compromises of any kind.
 

kharma45

Member
I don't think you guys understand what rebooting means. That's like saying iOS 5 to iOS 6 is rebooting the OS lol

They have only rebooted twice. Windows Mobile to WP 7 and WP 7 to WP 8.

All WP8 were upgradable to W10 Mobile. All apps were backward compatible.

And yes I am not defending it, even rebooting twice was terrible idea. And WP7 to WP8 transition was painful. Lot of developers and fans gave up on the platform after that move.

That's not right. Lots of WP8 devices weren't upgraded to 10. The only ones that were was the 730/735, 640/XL, 830, 930 and 1520. The rest like the 520, 920, 1020 etc. all stayed on 8.1. It was only a select bunch that got W10M.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom