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A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

blogs.windows.com

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Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#31

Post by vaylian »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #17

Microsoft are between a rock and a hard place. They've done a very good job maintaining compatibility with windows/DOS x86 programs as hardware and the OS grows, but eventually for windows to survive and be competitive they need to ditch it and do a successful port to the next generation (presumably ARM). This will be challenging and painful for many of their existing users.

I think that's one of the reasons why they created the .NET framework: To be able to create a new "virtual" plattform that can be ported to other environments. There is a lot of C# software out there that should run on ARM without any issues with a .NET runtime.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#32

Post by drevil-v2 »

oblio wrote: post #19
codeulike wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. I think Microsoft have 5 or 6 different lines of business that bring in billions or more of revenue: windows, cloud, gaming, office/productivity and surface. They are the most diversified of the big players.

Totally agreed. I'd also want to add something for this: > Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. Besides the fact, which many HN users working for FAANGS or startups don't encounter, that big enterprises are both rigid and also quite locked into the Microsoft/Windows/Office mono culture, big companies tend to hav…

I have seen that business orgs within an enterprise with their own P/L usually end up doing an end-run around IT and just buy MacBooks from suppliers or directly from Apple.

Funnily enough, both times I saw this happen (at a large bank and later at a utility company) the only thing we needed from IT was network access and a Windows VM license so that we could run the god awful company payroll app that required IE11 to work. Once a week dozens of very highly paid devs and SREs would boot up a Windows SOE VM, login to the domain, start the payroll app, enter in five rows of data and shutdown. What a waste of time and money.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#33

Post by beagle3 »

oblio wrote: post #21
londons_explore wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was Microsoft, I would be very reluctant to support Windows on M1 Macs. The obvious disadvantage is the consumer will get Mac OSX for free with the hardware, and won't be too keen to pay much more to Microsoft. Apple will end up earning most of the revenue. The strategic disadvantage is that as windows users move to M1 based macs, sales of PC hardware will drop, since the PC ecosystem is hobbled by a lack of dee…

> The strategic disadvantage is that as windows users move to M1 based macs, sales of PC hardware will drop, since the PC ecosystem is hobbled by a lack of deep integration, lower performance CPU's, lower profit margins, less R&D, etc. If volumes of sales drop too, it could trigger a cascade effect (fewer sales causes less R&D causes less desirable products causes fewer sales). That could kill consumer PC's entirely,…

I expect them to have an iPad that can fill this niche for $400 when you include a keyboard. Perhaps they already do.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#34

Post by Dylan16807 »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #15
mschuster91 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original x86 patents are expired by now, the x86-64 patents are held by AMD.

While that's true, Intel has steadily extended x86 over the years and many programs depend on those extensions, which are still patent protected.

How many programs depend on SSE3 or later? Any earlier extensions are free now.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#35

Post by kalleboo »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #15
mschuster91 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original x86 patents are expired by now, the x86-64 patents are held by AMD.

While that's true, Intel has steadily extended x86 over the years and many programs depend on those extensions, which are still patent protected.

Rosetta 2 doesn't support the SIMD extensions AVX (2011) and newer, but compatibility still seems pretty good

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#36

Post by withinboredom »

emilsedgh wrote: post #7

I'm wondering what's happening at Microsoft's camp regarding M1. They are in a weird situation. They depend on AMD/Intel to deliver. This is a massive dependency for Microsoft. Are there other large corporations have this big of a dependency? I understand that Microsoft's revenue is shifting towards cloud, services, etc. But I think Windows is still "the" key to a lot of those offerings. Take a massive chunk of marke…

> What are their options?

Windows supports a lot of devices. It’s likely that every single driver would need to be ported. I don’t see that happening.

Granted, I have almost no idea what I’m talking about. Just my thoughts.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#37

Post by orra »

Rexxar wrote: post #20
simfoo wrote: post #5

What happened to the patent issues surrounding x86 emulation? For example I remember reading this: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/intel... First Apple and now Microsoft. Do they license the patents from Intel or did they expire? Or are they working around that somehow?

Are Intel claims valid somewhere ? They are probably not in Europe where patents generally cannot be used to prevent interoperability.

> patents generally cannot be used to prevent interoperability

I think you're thinking of copyright? Where reverse engineering is allowed for interoperability.

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#38

Post by emteycz »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #32
oblio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed. I'd also want to add something for this: > Businesses above a certain size overwhelmingly use pcs unless they are in specific arty sectors. M1 won't change that, or at least not rapidly. Besides the fact, which many HN users working for FAANGS or startups don't encounter, that big enterprises are both rigid and also quite locked into the Microsoft/Windows/Office mono culture, big companies tend to hav…

I have seen that business orgs within an enterprise with their own P/L usually end up doing an end-run around IT and just buy MacBooks from suppliers or directly from Apple. Funnily enough, both times I saw this happen (at a large bank and later at a utility company) the only thing we needed from IT was network access and a Windows VM license so that we could run the god awful company payroll app that required IE11 t…

Same experience with the payroll app here!

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#39

Post by mythz »

emilsedgh wrote: post #7

I'm wondering what's happening at Microsoft's camp regarding M1. They are in a weird situation. They depend on AMD/Intel to deliver. This is a massive dependency for Microsoft. Are there other large corporations have this big of a dependency? I understand that Microsoft's revenue is shifting towards cloud, services, etc. But I think Windows is still "the" key to a lot of those offerings. Take a massive chunk of marke…

MS have declared Windows 10 as the "last version of windows" [1] as it's essentially transitioning into a free serviced OS like macOS and ChromeOS which after the initial OEM license cost will be receiving free updates indefinitely.

MS have been monetizing it as an additional ad platform for its other products & services like One Drive/Office 365/Edge, etc. which I frequently see popup.

In that light it makes sense for them to support ARM/M1 and as a goal have as many installations of Windows as possible as Google does with their OS's.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-ve...

Re: A preview of x64 emulation on Windows for ARM

#40

Post by MayeulC »

vaylian wrote: post #31
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #17

Microsoft are between a rock and a hard place. They've done a very good job maintaining compatibility with windows/DOS x86 programs as hardware and the OS grows, but eventually for windows to survive and be competitive they need to ditch it and do a successful port to the next generation (presumably ARM). This will be challenging and painful for many of their existing users.

I think that's one of the reasons why they created the .NET framework: To be able to create a new "virtual" plattform that can be ported to other environments. There is a lot of C# software out there that should run on ARM without any issues with a .NET runtime.

That was also the raison d'être of the Unified Windows Platform apps: to stop depending on Win32 APIs, which are tied to the system architecture. Not a bad goal IMO.

I wish we'd see more architecture-neutral binaries, based on LLVM or webassembly.

Of course, Plan 9/Inferno had it before others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(programming_language)#V...

(By virtue of being designed as a distributed OS, targeting machines with various architectures).

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