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It feels like the internal interest in Windows ARM comes in waves, that they keep letting it slide backwards. I mean they have been trying since Windows RT on

It feels like the internal interest in Windows ARM comes in waves, that they keep letting it slide backwards. I mean they have been trying since Windows RT on the original surface tablet 13 years ago.

imiric 1y ago
To be fair, the Surface Pro 11 ARM is really good. It's the best actual computer in a tablet form factor I've ever used. iPads and Android tablets are crippled by their OS, and x86 tablets are bulky, hot, underperform, and/or have poor battery life. Performance of every day tasks on the Surface is excellent, it sips power, and Microsoft has done a great job with their x86 emulation layer (Prism). Most x86 apps (including games!) work without any involvement from the user. In the few cases I ran into issues, tweaking the emulation settings for the app fixed the issue, and I think there was only one app that refused to run, though I don't remember what it was right now. Performance even with emulation is pretty good. This experience is light years ahead of Windows RT, and even Windows on ARM from a few years ago. So I don't think Microsoft's interest in ARM is waning anytime soon. They're clearly heavily invested in it, and the hard work has been paying off.
- sunshowers 1y ago
  Agreed, I got the Surface Pro 11 to have a Windows on ARM device to test on, and it's quickly become my favorite portable device. It's really nice to have a tablet that lasts days on battery, that you can draw on and then flip around and write code on. The last thing I was waiting on was Zed, which now works on Windows ARM as of a couple weeks ago (though there aren't official builds yet so I build it from source). Hate to hand it to Microsoft but it's just a really versatile and powerful device.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Have you also tried Visual Studio on it? This is something that would hold me back, only getting half backed experience, expecially as many plugins are still COM based.
    - hrydgard 1y ago
      It works just fine and is natively ARM, since a year or so.
      - pjmlp 1y ago
        Great, thanks for the feedback.
    - sunshowers 1y ago
      Not really, since most of my work is in Rust. I can't speak to COM plugins.

imiric 1y ago

To be fair, the Surface Pro 11 ARM is really good. It's the best actual computer in a tablet form factor I've ever used. iPads and Android tablets are crippled by their OS, and x86 tablets are bulky, hot, underperform, and/or have poor battery life. Performance of every day tasks on the Surface is excellent, it sips power, and Microsoft has done a great job with their x86 emulation layer (Prism). Most x86 apps (including games!) work without any involvement from the user. In the few cases I ran into issues, tweaking the emulation settings for the app fixed the issue, and I think there was only one app that refused to run, though I don't remember what it was right now. Performance even with emulation is pretty good. This experience is light years ahead of Windows RT, and even Windows on ARM from a few years ago. So I don't think Microsoft's interest in ARM is waning anytime soon. They're clearly heavily invested in it, and the hard work has been paying off.

sunshowers 1y ago
Agreed, I got the Surface Pro 11 to have a Windows on ARM device to test on, and it's quickly become my favorite portable device. It's really nice to have a tablet that lasts days on battery, that you can draw on and then flip around and write code on. The last thing I was waiting on was Zed, which now works on Windows ARM as of a couple weeks ago (though there aren't official builds yet so I build it from source). Hate to hand it to Microsoft but it's just a really versatile and powerful device.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Have you also tried Visual Studio on it? This is something that would hold me back, only getting half backed experience, expecially as many plugins are still COM based.
  - hrydgard 1y ago
    It works just fine and is natively ARM, since a year or so.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      Great, thanks for the feedback.
  - sunshowers 1y ago
    Not really, since most of my work is in Rust. I can't speak to COM plugins.