4 ms·
First, tihs document is about HW Certification. You can ship an ARM-based system that doesn't follow these rules, just won't be certified by MS -- much like ma
by kenjackson 15y ago
First, tihs document is about HW Certification. You can ship an ARM-based system that doesn't follow these rules, just won't be certified by MS -- much like many Android devices aren't Google certified.
Furthermore, MS actually bent over backwards on x86 and required for certification that the option to disable secure boot be provided (they could have been silent on this issue):
"Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv."
I'd wait for MS's response on ARM. They've taken some interesting architectural approaches with their current ARM implementation (striped and actually secure SD cards). There may be architectural reasons for this. Or it could be that there are security issues with it, given that UEFI on ARM is pretty new.
But in any case, if this is important to an OEM they can simply not get HW certification. This doesn't block anyone from actually installing Windows 8 on ARM on machines w/o this capability.
- recoiledsnake 15y agoAgreed on rest of the points, but Windows 8 on ARM is more like Windows Phone in the sense that you can't ship an ARM based system like you can with x86. You need a special license, there will be no OEM or user installable versions of Windows 8 ARM.
- tankenmate 15y agoBased on this you could make a case about this being an antitrust violation as they are tying one product (which is a monopoly in one arena) to another product in an arena which isn't a monopoly.
- pdubs 15y agoWhat about MSDN? I suspect it will be on there as likely the only legal way for a user to install it.
- recoiledsnake 15y agoWhy would it need to be available on MSDN? Windows Phone ROMs are not on there. There will be emulators for developers.
- brudgers 15y agoIt appears that ARM devices can fallover to legacy BIOS mode to support non UEFI OS's. From page 109 of windows8-hardware-cert-requirements-system.pdf: System.Fundamentals.Firmware.UEFIDefaultBoot Target Feature: System.Fundamentals.Firmware Title: All client systems must be able to boot into UEFI boot mode and attempt to boot into this mode by default Applicable OS Versions: Windows 8 Client x86 Windows 8 Client x64 Windows 8 Client ARM Windows 8 Server x64 Windows Server 2008 Release 2 x64 Description: The System firmware must be able to achieve UEFI mode boot by default. Such a system may also support fallback to legacy BIOS mode boot for deploying OS images which do not support UEFI, if the user explicitly selects that option in the pre-boot UEFI BIOS menu. This requirement is If Implemented for Server systems and applies only if a Server system is UEFI capable.
- cooldeal 15y agoI seriously doubt that legacy BIOS will support ARM.
- lgeek 15y agoThere's no BIOS on ARM. BIOS is x86-only.
- brudgers 15y agoIt's "legacy Bios mode." I believe that implementation requirements for legacy BIOS mode are not part of the certification. And in any event, it is likely that the BIOS Boot Specification (BBS) could be used to provide for unique hardware requirements during booting.