Windows 8 ARM Will Not Support Legacy Software 381
An anonymous reader writes "Intel, speaking out of turn and damaging its intimate relationship with Microsoft, has revealed that legacy x86-compiled software will not work on the ARM version of Windows 8. Microsoft has promised that the Office suite will be available on Windows 8 ARM, but beyond that, nothing. While this means there won't be many compatible apps at launch, it also means this will be the first full-bodied version of Windows that won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware..."
Really? (Score:5, Informative)
This just in, x86 and ARM instruction sets are NOT compatible! Everyone panic! Blame MS! No, wait... Sony must have had a hand in this!
File this under no shit, Sherlock.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Then what does Rosetta do on Mac?
Not complete accurate (Score:4, Informative)
The article isn't completely accurate. It fails to specify that it will not natively run x86-based code on Win8 ARM. There's no valid reason why x86 code won't be able to run inside a virtual x86 machine running on top of the ARM architecture.
The summary also makes this statement which is not accurate to the version in the article:
it also means this will be the first full-bodied version of Windows that won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware
The actual quote is that it won't be susceptible to existing viruses and malware.
They also assume that all code will have to be re-written from the ground up, which is completely false. Most application code will need to be ported, and in many cases security holes which are due to fundamental design flaws (as opposed to coding mistakes) will simply be ported along with it. So yes, a lot of existing malware will break but that's no reason to lay down and assume that developers who made crappy software in the past will suddenly cease their shitty practices.
Re:They went further than that (Score:4, Informative)
As consumers we can win from this. Without the constraint of making the bloated Windows OS run on their chips, Intel can dive into low power. Without the glacial software development lifecycle in Redmond Intel can bring out new stuff faster. That's good stuff.
Yeah, it was Windows holding them back, not the laws of physics. Nice catch.
Oh, and Windows is better with power than any of the Linux distros I've used.
Microsoft already commented on this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:they already have windows for arm (Score:4, Informative)
Windows CE only shares the name with desktop Windows.
It's basically a different OS.
Windows 8 (as I unterstand) will be the same OS compiled for a different platform.
But yes, Microsoft has experience with mulitplattform OS': Windows NT ran on Alpha and other architectures.
Re:Why buy a Window's device... (Score:5, Informative)
Would not help at all. Wine is two things, its an implementation of the Windows api and a loader. If you have the source you can compile your windows api application for other some architectures using winelib. So you might be able to port your program to ARM Linux with it. You would not need winelib on Windows because Windows will provide the windows api.
You can't use wines loader and server functions to run x86 code on ARM period, it does not provide a virtual machine. All it can do is let you run binaries build for x86 windows on other x86 platforms. So wine is useless for running legacy software on ARM Windows.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Informative)
I would beg to differ with regard to Rosetta not working with anything complicated, and I have a perfect example - Mac Office 2004 on a Core Duo Macbook Pro, verses iWork Numbers on the same platform.
I had a spreadsheet with about 200 data points, of which I wanted to make three graphs - in Numbers, running natively on Intel, it dragged along for tens of minutes when rebuilding the graphs. With Mac Office 2004, running under Rosetta, Excel had the whole thing done in a couple of seconds.
I haven't used Numbers since.
Re:Simple solution... (Score:5, Informative)