Windows Already Up and Running On ARM Architecture 348
syngularyx writes "Over at Microsoft's MIX Developer Conference in sunny Las Vegas, Microsoft has demoed a new preview build of Internet Explorer 10 (which you too can take for a spin, if you feel so inclined), and also dropped a little premature Easter egg – the build of IE10, and the underlying Windows OS, were both running on a 1GHz ARM chip. Sneaky."
I'm sure they had it skunkworks years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
At least based on my MS friend's claims... they probably have many such projects (say, like, a fully functional web-based MS office)
In fact I'd say this is one of those companies where such innovative ideas usually go to die, as they often "might windows or office cashflows".
Now that windows is threatened, then the skunkworks projects get revealed. The battle for ARM dominance is joined and now there are many contenders (WebOS, iOS, ChromeOS, etc).
Re:can you hack the iphone / ipad to run windows 8 (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that is Android does run on iOS hardware, good point.
http://www.idroidproject.org/ [idroidproject.org]
Re:I'm sure they had it skunkworks years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact I'd say this is one of those companies where such innovative ideas usually go to die, as they often "might windows or office cashflows".
Having worked at Microsoft, here's my take.
Microsoft's products must be compatible with a huge variety of hardware and software configurations, with at least 10 years of backward compatibility. Yes, Microsoft has redundant projects and a lot of prototypes that never see the light of day. But it's better to kill an internal ARM build than to release a version which won't play nice with existing environments.
Believe me, Microsoft has a lot of smart engineers, programmers and researchers. Most people have NO IDEA of the level of talent that exists in Microsoft Research. At the same time, Microsoft is a huge company which must cater to the interests of businesses which insist on using IE6. Thus, it generally can't afford the luxury of breaking compatibility for the sake of agile development.
Of course, this is one side of the story. Management also makes mistakes.
If you must remember something, consider this: Microsoft doesn't want ARM Windows to be like Vista.
Re:can you hack the iphone / ipad to run windows 8 (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows can't open OOXML documents. Office can. That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish, they had big problems getting Office for Mac from PowerPC to x86, and reportedly the Office for Windows codebase is even older and more convoluted. It'll be hard if not impossible to port to ARM.
The big problem, Windows will be at a big big disadvantage, and in fact I don't thik it'll be competitive:
1) It's bloated and poor-performing when compared to most Linux distros, or MacOS for that matter. ARM systems tend to me "small" (low processor speed, low RAM, etc.)
2) Applications. This is really Windows main (IMHO sole) strength, on ARM it is gone! You use Ubuntu, and you have a full set of NATIVE applications on ARM just as on x86*. You use Windows, you'll either have almost no applications (if it doesn't emulate x86), or you'll have all these apps that run at a fraction of native speed. Microsoft *had* NT running on HP PA-RISC, Dec Alpha, PowerPC, and perhaps one or two other platforms. The absolute lack of apps did the in (Alpha used an x86 emulator however.) There was Windows for Itanium, again no apps (it was really stripped, though, couldn't even print.)
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*Side note, i almost got into collecting some "exotic" computers, but after we installed Linux onto several, they were so indstinguishable from the regular PC experience I figured it wasn't worth it even if I could get them at a good price. I put Linux onto a DEC Alpha about 5 years ago, it was so similar to an x86 desktop that I would not have been able to tell it was an Alpha without looking at the case (which was a PC-like Case but said "Alpha" on it.) As a prank, my workmates switched my x86 Ubuntu desktop out for a PowerMac with Ubuntu, moved it into the same case, and got USB->PS2 adapters so my model M keyboard and all was plugged in, and put my home directory etc. back onto that. Seriously, I didn't notice it was a Mac until I rebooted and heard the Mac startup sound. We installed some distro on a PA-RISC, again it was indistinguishable from a x86 desktop. With a ARM based system you will not be disappointed with an ARM distro.
Does nobody remember MS's "portability" promises? (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows NT was originally positioned as a portable, platform-neutral system and Microsoft made a big deal of it not being just limited to Intel architecture but also running on ACE platforms (remember ACE?), MIPS, Digital Alpha, and at least one other whose name escapes me. IBM PowerPC maybe?
Microsoft seduced and abandoned companies that committed to Windows on non-Intel platforms, with the abandonment beginning almost as soon as the seduction was complete. My employer made a significant commitment to Windows-on-DEC-Alpha--at that time, their specific application benchmarked over twice as fast on Alpha as on Intel. It was NT 3.51, IIRC, and Microsoft moved up to Windows 4.0 on Intel and kept dragging feet and making excuses on Alpha, finally acknowledging that it was not going to be supported. At that point, the Alpha systems bought by my employer's customers were barely a year old, and those customers were not happy with us for selling them such rapidly orphaned products.
What matters is not whether Windows can run on ARM, but whether Microsoft actually has any serious or durable commitment to supporting it on that platform.
Re:Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows on ARM is going to suck or it won't be anything like the Windows you know( ie it will have to be _vastly_ cut down ). And you know it's going to need antivirus software so start betting on 4+ cores and a couple of gigs of RAM as a minimum configuration. I wonder how small they can make those cooling fans?
LoB
Suprise... and Microsoft will suprise everybody (Score:4, Interesting)
So... I will surprise everybody.
WIN8 running very very well already on ARM processors.
They rebooted WIN8 to the originally planned WIN7 micro kernel.
Win8 is a one microkernel with multiple interfaces to be booted up within 3sec.
1. It can be traditional PC
2. CAN be Tablet
3. Can be WInphone (Bye bye WInphone 7... if you didn’t realize it was/is just a research and UI project)
4. It runs inside TVs (Hello Samsung!)
5. Runs in the cloud.
6. It is the embedded.
The same Win8.
The Winphone 7 software delivery packaging implemented and further enhanced for consistent solution delivery.
One development toolkit to develop solution across all platforms.
You think it is not true. You don't believe that MS can pull this off. They already did it!!! Just they have learnt from Apple. SILENCE! You will be shocked.
People talking about the backward comp ability as an issue. This is NOT a problem anymore because of what MS done in the virtualization.
The virtualization is part of the kernel and can natively virtualize anything to achieve backward compability.
Have you ever thought what this Really really means? You should have goose bumps...