3 ms·

I'm glad they finally released good details on what is and isn't possible on Win8/ARM. My takeaway from this is: while they're not doing it, nothing is stoppin

by daeken 15y ago

I'm glad they finally released good details on what is and isn't possible on Win8/ARM. My takeaway from this is: while they're not doing it, nothing is stopping someone from emulating Win/x86 applications on ARM. I've been playing around with doing it (nothing serious, just working through some of the tech challenges and using it as an excuse to learn LLVM better) and while there are challenges, it's definitely not insurmountable. I have a feeling that if Win8/ARM takes off, this could be a big market -- maybe I should take it a bit more seriously.

freehunter 15y ago
As the owner of a HP Touchpad, I'm incredibly disappointed by this line >Windows on ARM software will not be sold or distributed independent of a new WOA PC I don't want to have to buy a new tablet with the same hardware just to run a new OS. Hopefully Technet subscribers can get a copy, or XDA et al can manage to provide. It'd be nice to have a legal option, though.
- wmf 15y ago
  Your TouchPad doesn't have UEFI and there are no Windows drivers for the TouchPad either.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    It would be possible, though probably not easy, if the proper people had the proper access.
    - wmf 15y ago
      There's a Hackintosh community so I'm sure there will be a Hackdows community, but MS isn't going to ship a version of Windows that requires "community" drivers to work. As far as MS is concerned it's WHQL or nothing.
      - mappu 15y ago
        The Hackintosh community is greatly benefited by the fact that OSX's Darwin kernel is open source. For instance, Atom support was lost somewhere along the official way, but third-party patched kernels exist to reintroduce it (c.f. Nawcom et al).
caf 15y ago
It doesn't sound like you'll have access to the Win32 API, so you'd have to translate all the Win32 API calls made by the x86 application into WinRT calls. And will they actually let you sell an application through the Windows Store whose purpose is to run other non-Window-Store-acquired code? It seems likely that they'll have to institute a policy against such applications, just like the Apple App Store, to prevent end-runs around the Windows Store.

by daeken 15y ago

freehunter 15y ago

As the owner of a HP Touchpad, I'm incredibly disappointed by this line >Windows on ARM software will not be sold or distributed independent of a new WOA PC I don't want to have to buy a new tablet with the same hardware just to run a new OS. Hopefully Technet subscribers can get a copy, or XDA et al can manage to provide. It'd be nice to have a legal option, though.

wmf 15y ago
Your TouchPad doesn't have UEFI and there are no Windows drivers for the TouchPad either.
- freehunter 15y ago
  It would be possible, though probably not easy, if the proper people had the proper access.
  - wmf 15y ago
    There's a Hackintosh community so I'm sure there will be a Hackdows community, but MS isn't going to ship a version of Windows that requires "community" drivers to work. As far as MS is concerned it's WHQL or nothing.
    - mappu 15y ago
      The Hackintosh community is greatly benefited by the fact that OSX's Darwin kernel is open source. For instance, Atom support was lost somewhere along the official way, but third-party patched kernels exist to reintroduce it (c.f. Nawcom et al).

caf 15y ago

It doesn't sound like you'll have access to the Win32 API, so you'd have to translate all the Win32 API calls made by the x86 application into WinRT calls. And will they actually let you sell an application through the Windows Store whose purpose is to run other non-Window-Store-acquired code? It seems likely that they'll have to institute a policy against such applications, just like the Apple App Store, to prevent end-runs around the Windows Store.