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Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

microsoft.com

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Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#21

Post by ssp »

There is the idea that Windows is such a terrible system that the only reason people are staying with it is that they need their legacy applications. It's not entirely without merit, but for a lot of people and businesses, Windows actually works rather well.

The importance of x86 is overstated too. Many applications will be pretty close to a recompile away. There is of course the usual chicken-and-egg issue that all platforms have, but if Windows/ARM (WARM?) takes off, they will be recompiled.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#22

Post by discreteevent »

roc wrote: post #15

So Microsoft sees a real threat in Chrome OS netbooks then? That's the only place I see this being relevant. Windows in any form that can meaningfully execute legacy x86 code is not going into a non-PC device. (dashboard computers, pocket computers, pmps, phones, tablets, etc) So the only thing left is netbooks. Is that really a relevant play in 2011? Do they think this isn't a feature Google can match and beat them…

I know that the "news" in this announcement is about ARM. But Soc itself is also about making existing PC software run faster. At the moment there is little argument for purchasing new hardware because multiple cores are failing to significantly improve actual performance of desktop apps for reasons with which we are all familiar.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#23

Post by joshhart »

rbanffy wrote: post #11
runjake wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@rbanffy, they HAVE left the x86 comfort zone, see .NET.

I would be surprised if more than 30% of their codebase cleanly compiled for anything other than a x86...

I wouldn't. I interned in core operating systems division a few years ago. Managers cared about portability.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#24

Post by kijinbear »

rbanffy wrote: post #9
kenjackson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this no fad, and I think Intel must've seriously screwed up. Everyone knew that Intel was promising MS, "we're going to match ARM on performance per watt in the coming years". That roadmap must have disintegrated, as MS would not have come public otherwise. The batteries will be a little smaller, to reduce weight, but 24 hours of operation on a single charge... that might becomes the standard.

In order for Windows on RISC to succeed, Microsoft and all 3rd parties will have to leave the x86 comfort zone and really support it. Last time MS tried to be multi-architecture, they failed miserably. They couldn't even be bothered to port Office to non-x86 machines. And nobody buys a PC to run only Windows and Office. They'll have to do a whole lot more than they did and I don't think they would be capable of.

Now they have Office Live, which can be accessed through a web browser. So they don't need to port the entire Office suite, if they're targeting the netbook market. After all, Win 8 + Office Live sounds like pretty much the same deal as Chrome OS + Google Docs.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#25

Post by kenjackson »

ssp wrote: post #21

There is the idea that Windows is such a terrible system that the only reason people are staying with it is that they need their legacy applications. It's not entirely without merit, but for a lot of people and businesses, Windows actually works rather well. The importance of x86 is overstated too. Many applications will be pretty close to a recompile away. There is of course the usual chicken-and-egg issue that all…

Enterprise LOB is almost all .NET and web now. Native apps are increasingly just consumer apps.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#26

Post by wtracy »

runjake wrote: post #2

Interesting that Microsoft's answer to "Why?" seems to be "Because we can." by journalists. Hopefully they have a better strategy than that. That said, I'm all for more ARM support in the world. It looks like it will run .NET apps with little or no reworking. They probably borrowed a lot of the work of the .NET Compact Framework team for a reverse port. Expect native SDKs later, after the initial launch.

MS has learned from their experience with Windows on Alpha. Even when they released XP for x86-64, they initially wouldn't sell it at retail for fear that people would get confused and buy the wrong one.

I'm betting they have some compatibility magic cooked up that we haven't seen yet.

Emulation has already been suggested. How about the possibility of having a launch hook that recompiles x86 machine code to ARM machine code? MS is on the short list of companies with the necessary resources to pull that sort of trick.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#27

Post by kijinbear »

bonzoesc wrote: post #13
dmethvin wrote: post #8

If this is true, then Windows 8 is not a true successor to Windows 7. Current desktop/server apps assume binary compatibility with x86. This sounds much more like a scaled-up version of Windows Phone.

That's a crazy thing to say. The UI, the APIs, etc. will all be based on Windows 7, and any all-CLR apps should run without change. On Windows 8 running on x86, current apps (and Windows 3.1 apps, and maybe DOS apps?) will undoubtedly still run. It's just like the Mac Intel transition, but without an emulator to fill in the gaps.

Who knows? MS might be obsessed enough with backwards compatibility to pack an emulator in there, like they did with WOW64 (though it would be more difficult to write an x86 emulator for ARM).

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#28

Post by jawee »

kenjackson wrote: post #16
wmf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With virtualization (and app virtualization) you can run x86 apps seamlessly. Not on ARM. Emulation is possible but will be really slow.

How slow? I did some quick profiling of Word and Excel doing basic stuff (text entries, making charts, but no hardcore calculations). Avg CPU utilization: 1%. Peak CPU utilization: 4%. A factor of 10x slowdown would probably be reasonable. Is the current state of the art on ARM able to get it below 10x?

Have you ever tried running Office with a little network latency? The 10x slowdown is barely usable and unavoidably annoying, especially if you're used to a faster computer.

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#29

Post by mishmash »

wtracy wrote: post #26
runjake wrote: post #2

Interesting that Microsoft's answer to "Why?" seems to be "Because we can." by journalists. Hopefully they have a better strategy than that. That said, I'm all for more ARM support in the world. It looks like it will run .NET apps with little or no reworking. They probably borrowed a lot of the work of the .NET Compact Framework team for a reverse port. Expect native SDKs later, after the initial launch.

MS has learned from their experience with Windows on Alpha. Even when they released XP for x86-64, they initially wouldn't sell it at retail for fear that people would get confused and buy the wrong one. I'm betting they have some compatibility magic cooked up that we haven't seen yet. Emulation has already been suggested. How about the possibility of having a launch hook that recompiles x86 machine code to ARM machi…

Although IBM seems to own them now, it could be the same Rosetta technology that Mac OS X used. The parent company had many public licensees and MS could have been one, but not announced.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit
edit: formatting

Re: Windows 8 to support ARM, System on a chip, architectures

#30

Post by eru »

joshhart wrote: post #23
rbanffy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if more than 30% of their codebase cleanly compiled for anything other than a x86...

I wouldn't. I interned in core operating systems division a few years ago. Managers cared about portability.

Why did they care?
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