Microsoft Details Windows 8 for ARM 372
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samzenpus
from the getting-the-scoop dept.
from the getting-the-scoop dept.
MrSeb writes "In an 8,000-word treatise, Steven Sinofksy himself has taken up pen and paper to describe Windows 8 on ARM (WOA) in great detail. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but one point is particularly troubling. Quoting Sinofsky: 'WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps. Code that uses only system or OS services from WinRT can be used within an app and distributed through the Windows Store for both WOA and x86/64. Consumers obtain all [WOA] software, including device drivers, through the Windows Store and Microsoft Update or Windows Update.' It's hard to under-emphasize just how huge a change that is. It's one thing to say that ARM CPUs won't support x86 emulation; something else entirely to split software delivery and installation. Up until now, one of the biggest differences between desktop and mobile operating systems has been the ability to install software. It's true that Microsoft's decision to wall off unapproved software installation is similar to the approach of Android and iOS — but iOS isn't the same thing as OS X. Combining both of these decisions under the 'Windows' brand could be disastrous, not because Microsoft is evil, but because it creates two entirely different user experiences on the basis of which ISA your CPU supports."
Re:Please, (Score:2, Informative)
I say no borg icon, because Microsoft is irrelevant.
Re:Please, (Score:4, Informative)
May we have the old Borg icon back for this story?
No, the old borg icon had the Bill Gates face, a guy that since then has saved millons of lives. He deserve a better icon.
Why Go ARM when there is Medfield? (Score:5, Informative)
I am failing to see why anyone would get an WOA tablet.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
Summary Medfield is running in similar power envelope to an ARM SoC, but with faster benchmarks.
ARM might get you marginally more battery life, but Medfield gives you full backward compatibility.
Re:Like NT/RISC before it... (Score:4, Informative)
Why are uninformed FUD comments like this getting modded up? The blogpost clearly states that WOA devices will be unequivocally labelled to strongly distinguish them from traditional x86/64 devices.
WOA is not an attempt to replace Windows with a gimped version of itself. It's meant to be another member of the Windows family, like Windows Server, Windows Phone, etc., that extends the basic Windows paradigm to devices where it does not have significant market share. It is basically a rearchitected Windows CE that takes into account the rise of iOS.
iOS is derived from OSX, but you wouldn't expect to run an OSX application on iOS. So Joe Q Public is already primed to the idea that top-tier desktop applications won't run on WOA, and from reading the article, it seems that the marketing of the tablet devices will make that abundantly clear. Windows 8 Desktop is the successor to Windows 7 and WOA is something different, a competitor to iOS that has a Windows-esque look and feel.
Where WOA claims to have an advantage over iOS is, first, that it will allow users interact with the device with a traditional desktop paradigm, if they choose. Secondly, WOA apps, unlike iOS apps, will be also able to be run on your traditional desktop/laptop, making for a much more integrated total experience. And thirdly and most importantly, MS Office.
However, if the concept of being able to "up-run" your tablet apps on your desktop proves fruitful, there's no engineering reason why Apple couldn't do the same thing. And of course, once Apple did do it, suddenly up-running your apps would be the most awesomeish thing ever.
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
For the people that absolutely cannot live without legacy Win32 code, there will be x86 devices in similar form factors as the ARM devices. There was a whole pile of them unveiled at CES this year.
Re:Please wait... (Score:5, Informative)
i'm sorry but you are incorrect. I ran Vista on what was a pretty nice machine at the time, an Intel Pentium D 2.66Ghz, 2Gb of RAM, and a Geforce 7600GS and the thing was a dog, it would have "senior moments" and forget the network shares and not see them before being rebooted, would drag down the entire system when doing simple multitasking like watching a movie while doing a file transfer, and this was seen all the way through SP1 which is when i finally gave up on the POS. Now that exact same machine is running Win 7 Home and has been since Oct 09, and its fast, it runs great on the network, nothing about the hardware has been changed, still the same Pentium D, still the same GPU, same everything but when I use that machine its like night and day. The performance of Vista was so bad it got to be a running joke at the shop, when someone would come in with Vista we'd say "I'm sorry" and make a little tisk tisk noise. Take any of those machines and slap Win 7 on them (which I have done quite often) and all I get from customers is "Wow, this is like a new machine, thanks!". so calling Win 7 no better than Vista is simply incorrect, its like saying WinXP is no better than WinME, there really is no comparison.
As for win 8, anybody smell that? that stench of fail that is practically leaking from the thing like a silent but deadly fart? I've been running the dev preview on an Athlon X2 i have sitting in the corner of the shop, now this baby has 3gb of RAM, fast 200gb SATA, its not a bad machine at all, but everyone who has tried it, more than 200 so far, has HATED IT with a capital H! this is the same stupidity we saw with winMo only in reverse, instead of tying the desktop metaphor to mobile we are seeing the mobile metaphor tied to desktop and its still a failwhale. Honestly after spending 3 days with it as my primary OS I couldn't stand it anymore, without a touchscreen its just painful to use.
And what person is gonna want a Win 8 ARM that doesn't run Windows programs? THIS, this right here, is the reason we need to call Captain Obvious to save the day. MSFT simply refuses to believe that the ONLY reason people use Windows is WINDOWS PROGRAMS which as we see in TFA simply won't run on ARM. Here we see MSFT vainly believe if they Ape the Apple philosophy they can get Apple iMoney, but its so full of fail its unreal. Without the lock on x86 people simply won't buy windows, and why should they? apple has nicer designs, android is cheaper, they have NO selling point for Win 8. Mark my words its gonna make Vista look like 95, its gonna go down so hard it'll finally kill those WinME and Bob jokes. in the future people will say "Its a Win 8 level of fail!" to describe projects that have no chance. maybe we'll get lucky and this turkey will get Ballmer finally fired and they can bring Allchin or Ozzie back to right the ship, because this is just a disaster and even the shills like the Yahoo product girl, whose answer to every product is "Buy it! Buy it now!" said of Win 8" Uhhh...wait until you get something with a touchscreen before getting it" which for her was the equivalent of "My eyes! The goggles they do nothing!"