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Windows 8 ARM Will Not Support Legacy Software
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..."
Given that its for tablets with a touch UI. I doubt there's a huge demand for x86 software from the 1990s to run natively on such devices. Most of the apps they'll run are likely to be web-based with processing performed on the remote machine.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Intel went so far as to say that legacy software would "not ever" run on ARM. To do that they have to have to have the stick of software patents to prevent an ARM->x86 emulator.
This is not good for Microsoft. It means their relationship with Intel is irretrievably broken. The WinTel alliance is no more.
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.
The distant threat is that when Intel seeks a market they want all of it. They're late to this game and their Atom chips don't cut it yet - their promises are some 24-36 months out, and ARM and Microsoft are not going to be standing still in the meantime. They're promising "best in class mobile video tech" but I swear to God if they buy Imagination Technologies to cut out ARM mobile chipset vendors I'm going to fucking do everything in my power to kill them. That would shift Intel from the "Invention of technologies" camp to the "prevention of technologies" camp. I'm not OK with that.
But if what Intel means is that they're going to let the legacy go and deliver the best low-power chips they can, that's a good thing. Your PC doesn't have to burn the watts it does. There are lots of folk in the third world with valuable input who don't have watts. It does not take a kilowatt gaming rig to work spreadsheets any longer.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's not like Microsoft don't want you to use .NET anyway.
All Microsoft need to do is support the CLR runtime and framework under the new version and anything running on .NET that doesn't call unmanaged code will work straight away.
Same for anything running on Java, and it's not like that doesn't run on other architectures already. That means productivity apps like OpenOffice/etc will also work.
It's not all doom and gloom!
... the software publishers will just compile their stuff for ARM. How hard can that be?
Don't want to spoil the act, but historically there were several non x86 versions of windows nt before (dec alpha comes to my mind, and others...)
This is something that should have been done with Windows Vista. And then with Windows 7. Let's hope they DO do it with Windows 8. Perhaps even get rid of the 32 bit OS side of things.
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.
I think Microsoft—after repeatedly failing in the tablet market with Windows—has finally noticed that precisely what allows the current tablets to succeed is that they don't try to act like a touch-screen desktop. There's no point in them bringing compatibility with old apps!
Really, did anyone expect Microsoft to be the company to write a machine-language interpreter for legacy support? This isn't news.
won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware
Well, now, I wouldn't speak too soon. There will undoubtedly be a beta release or a leak which will give malware authors ample time to develop zero-day viruses. And with Windows 8 exploring very different terrain this time around, there's bound to be a plethora of exploits just waiting for someone to coax them out of hiding (or plain sight).
they already have windows for arm, they've had it for a decade. it's called windows ce, or pocket pc, or mobile, or whatever. the catch on that has always been that it doesn't run x86 windows apps.
oh and you can already buy laptops for 100$ that run (probably pirated) version of windows ce.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.
As you know, a lot of open-source software can be compiled for ARM out-of-the-box. The F/OSS world can continue using existing apps even when the processor architecture changes.
"MS Office ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Steve Ballmer, 2012
839*929
It's understandable that legacy Windows applications won't run on Windows 8 for ARM because Visual C++/C# emits lots of x86-64 low level instructions into the code that are unlikely compatible with ARM. However, I guess a simple recompile of the source code with Visual C++ next version will do the work.
I think I speak for many here when I say that the editors need to, well, edit a bit more. The summary is full of bias which should be reserved for the comments. Can we please just have factual summaries in future?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
...if it won't run Window's software?. Most everything else is a simple compile away from user's being able to be run on any device they own. Microsoft is really going to screw the pooch here if they don't ensure compatibility with existing software.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-intel-executive-was-wrong-about-windows-8 Long story short, this statement from intel is incorrect. But guess what: intel is a chip manufacturer that sells x86 cpu's and has sold its arm devision a few years back, how much more biased do you want a source of information. In reality it will most likely be an ugly vm running your old non recompilable software slowly.
Cue a return of malicious VBS scripts and/or Word Macros. The ILOVEYOU worm went global in 24 hours back in May 2000, and was written in VBS.
There will be two versions of Windows 8, Legacy and ARM - so pick one and stop whining.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/19/microsoft-rebuts-intels-claims-about-windows-8-calls-them-fac/ [engadget,com]
Didn't Microsoft buy Snype recently?
You're never gonna give this up are you Rik?
So uh, has wine been ported to windows yet? Just asking ;)
A bad analogy is like a leaky screwdriver.
That Intel knows so much about MS plans and development policy.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Surely though, once they compile the .Net framework over to ARM, all current .NET software will work... Whilst there are MANY legacy programs out there, the majority of Windows software nowadays is programmed in .NET.
Who wrote the article is an idiot. Properly written managed .NET code will _at worst_ require recompilation. Ask yourself why MS has been pushing managed code like hell...
...there should be no need for it. When a program proven to run on for single processor running at 100mhz can't be run on on one emulating the same at 3000mhz it is time to lay blame squarely at the foot of the emulation environment itself.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
In related news, no shit, sherlock.
Apparently, the geniuses over at Intel forgot about emulation and virtual machine software.
Well I'm never going to let you down am I?
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.
I think what intel is saying is that MS are:
that Windows 8 is going to drop some of legacy API support available in WIndows 7 - and while Win8 x86 is going to offer a "classic" mode this won't be available on ARM (...I wonder if this is a reference to the existing virtualization-based legacy mode in Win7/Vista?)
Of course, what Microsoft gets and Intel apparently doesn't is that Win8/ARM's main competitors will not be other Windows machines (as was the case when Windows NT briefly supported other processors such as Alpha) but against iOS and Android in the mobile world and Linux in the server world. If Win8/ARM netbooks can run "geniune" MS Office and Win8/ARM servers talk "genuine" Active Directory and Exchange Server, along with lots of "modern" windows software written in .NET, some people will choose them over iOS, Android or Linux. Intel will surely be the solution of choice for corporates wanting to run their 1990-era dBaseII systems - but even that market will eventually fade away.
As for tablets and smartphones - they'll need custom-designed software anyway so legacy is irrelevant.
(* Hell, I was running x86 PC software via an emulator on my ARM3-based desktop back in 1990 - but the ARM3 was a desktop superchip that smoked the 286s of the day... maybe ARM will make a triumphant return to the desktop, but it will need a 64-bit makeover and a FPU).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ I used to expect so much more from slashdotters.
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.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Does anybody really think virus writers don't own compilers?
Me? I'm bet the virus writers will have their stuff working long before the anti-virus companies have theirs.
PS: Won't Word macro viruses work without even a recompile?
No sig today...
http://xkcd.com/303/
There will be much sword fighting.
What the frack are you talking about?
Every ARM worth talking about these days (past ARMv6) has a mandatory FPU coproc on 14 (single-precision) and 15 (double-precision), it's a vector FPU, and NEON multimedia in the later Cortex versions. All of the iPhones are ARM and have a FPU.
I should know. I'd written a FPU driver for WinMob6 that remapped all the software library calls into hardware calls, as well the fact MSVC generates ARM inline FPU calls, if set with the right flags.
Why do you think Froyo jumped 5-10x in linpack? Hardware FPU-enabled -- I'd gotten the same increase in WinMob6 on math benchmarks.
Speaking of WINE, I have a question I want to ask that's usually asked as a joke, but I'm asking it seriously. Will this chip run Linux? How hard would it be to port Linux to it? I've sworn off Microsoft products, so if Windows is all this chip will run it's a no-starter for me.
Free Martian Whores!
How does releasing Windows 8 for arm and not supporting x86 apps equate to "the first full-bodied version of Windows that won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware...?"
Does that mean that Windows 8 is closing all of the security holes that allow for viruses and malaware? If so, why would it just be the arm version that is protected? On the other hand, if they are not closing the security holes, how does using arm protect it? Just because a virus will have to be rewritten to execute on the arm platform does not mean the platform won't be susceptible to viruses and malware, unless the OS is changed to protect against it.
AFAIK, linux does run on ARM for close to a decade. Heck, it even runs Ubuntu !
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Yes, and moving to Intel killed Apple. Like iLife 08 didn't run on both G5 (Power PC) and Intel Macs. Where there's a will there's a way. And finally I have a good reason to move from Office '97.
yes, i totally agree but it is suprising how some times xp will start in that menu, and WIN7 tasks to long to shut down i allways kill -9
Same thing 14 years ago, for x86 windows on Alpha...
With cached dynamic recompilation, the ARM CPU becomes a non-issue over time as the binary gradually migrates itself to native wihout any upstream work required by the software vendors.
http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/usenix-nt97/full_papers/chernoff/chernoff.pdf
I hate to say it but this could be good for Windows/MS!
A new start on a new architecture, with none of the legacy compatibility crap in.
Thats what Windows has needed for a long time.
OSX was tacked on top of NEXT.
NEXT ran on anything.
First beta OSX was release on Intel, I had a copy.
I actually ran OSX beta rhapsody on a VirtualPC VM on a PPC mac.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I hope for Microsoft's sake that they're working on something akin to LLVM so that C++/C apps can be rebuilt in an architecture neutral manner.
I thought that's precisely what the .NET Framework and the C++/CLI language were for.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No worries, they will likely leave out macros just like they did with OS X. Good riddance.
Get a web developer
Its a GNUWORLD :p
Umm, ARM, the processor that Android (Linux) runs on? Seriously, did you buy your ID?
Put identity in the browser.
Linux is very well supported on ARM. In fact, many embedded systems run on Linux/ARM.
...if it won't run Window's software?.
Well, you can be sure that it will run "official" MS Office and"official" Microsoft Exchange clients (...and probably Exchange servers if ARM servers take off). That will be attractive to some people (even though it might not sway the average Slashdotter).
Also, as others have pointed out here, it could potentially run any Windows software developed in .NET, which compiles to bytecode (like Java) rather than native machine code.
That's assuming netbooks and servers - tablets and phones are a different kettle of fish because iOS and Android have shown that having software specifically designed for a touch-driven mobile trumps legacy compatibility.
Even there, though, it will offer the hordes of Windows developers a common API and development environment (much like OS X developers have a head start in iOS, even though they're not directly compatible) - so a developer could work entirely in C# or VB, and with (at least vaguely) familiar API across all platforms, rather than the current situation where Android prefers Java, iOS prefers Objective C and desktop WIndows prefers the .net languages, and all have fundamentally different APIs. Currently, I think the only real common language/API is JavaScript/DOM (which probably has a big future, but some people might not feel is suitable for "heavy lifting").
Of course, the majority view on /. is probably that none of the minor conveniences above are sufficient grounds for touching Windows with a 10' wooden pole.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I foresee an increase in the use of interpreted & demand-compiled languages...
If you think they are so fucking good, then go buy one and quit fucking whining about how they can't do x86. But if you love x86 then boycott ARM and quit whining.
And use cash, not credit. Pick your path, stick to your scripts and shut the fuck up already.
http://wiki.winehq.org/WineOnWindows
Working on it apparently
This page is about trying to get Wine to run in Windows. Many Wine DLLs can be cross-compiled with MinGW already, but Wine itself doesn't work yet.
Why would we want to get Wine running in Windows? Newer versions of Windows fail to support old applications that are still supported by Wine. So Wine for Windows would supply useful backward compatibility for users.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
No he earned it by understanding the limits of his knowledge and asking pertinent questions.
Does anybody really think virus writers don't own compilers?
They don't own them, they hack or pirate them!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The real sweet spot for Microsoft would be to have its own app store ready at launch, stocked with a fair sampling of Win-ARM software apps. More than anything else about the change, perhaps that's what Microsoft most hopes to get out of it.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Good riddance getting rid of the most powerful feature? Are you a gnome dev by chance?
Really sounds more like a linux world, whereas in Linux people would say "I downloaded this media player and it will not install..." Was it for Debian, Ubunutu, Red Hat and so on.
Now it would be "I have downloaded Angry birds for Windows, and it will not run?" "Are you using ARM or..........the other one?"
You're right. I was being unnecessarily snarky and I shouldn't have. Still, Googling "ARM Linux" would have completely answered his question, and ... how do you not know that already, anyway?
Put identity in the browser.
As another commenter pointed out, though, since WINE Is Not an Emulator, it wouldn't help in this case. You'd need some kind of x86 virtual machine still; Wine just provides APIs and binary loading.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
There will be no initial viruses... except for macro viruses.
The only stupid question is one that isn't asked. Nobody knows everything (and I asked the question before I had my first cup of coffee). I got my UID by being on slashdot ten years or so ago. I'm 59 years old and my synapses aren't as well oiled as they used to be.
My first computer was a slide rule. My second computer I built out of two potentiometers, a voltmeter, and a battery. When I was a teenager I made a little extra cash by converting cheap transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes and selling them to friends.
These days it's fashionable to be a nerd, but I was a nerd back when we were pariahs.
Since Linux runs well on ARM, then I don't see what the big deal is about not being able to run legacy Windows apps in Win 8. All you'd have to do would be to install Linux dual-boot on your Windows 8 machine, and run your legacy Windows apps under Wine in Linux. Maybe I still need more coffee...
Free Martian Whores!
Kinda like how the iOS runs all the other Apple apps.
Apple really screwed the pooch there.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
the problem is, that wine aint an emulator (its also the backronym of the product). so code compiled for x86 still wont work on wine on ARM.
you can find more about the topic here: http://wiki.winehq.org/ARM
You can still use qemu or another virtual machine to emulate x86 and run stuff with it.
I always say: "There are no stupid questions, only stupid people."
Then I follow: "Stupid people are the ones that don't ask stupid questions."
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
iOS is not Macintosh/MacOS/MacOS X.
So this is kind of like how Apple moved from
68k -> PPC, and maintained backwards compatibility.
OS 9 -> OS X, and maintained mostly backwards compatibility.
PPC -> PPC64, and had no problems with backwards compatibility.
PPC -> Intel, and maintained backwards compatibly (but finally did drop Classic).
At one time 10.5 came for PPC, PPC64, Intel, Intel64 all on the same install DVD. Microsoft still makes you have different install media.
Duh!
More coffee it is.
Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's an alternative implementation of Win32 (and Win16 and presumably parts of Win64).
Wine on ARM will run ARM Windows applications, just like Windows on ARM will.
Wine on x86 will run x86 Windows applications, just like Windows on x86 will.
You'll need Qemu or similar emulation software, which emulates a different CPU, rather than Wine.
> this will be the first full-bodied version of Windows that won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware
Yes, because as everybody knows, the first thing an Office macro virus does is check the underlying platform.
"Intel’s statements during yesterday’s Intel Investor Meeting about Microsoft’s plans for the next version of Windows were factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading. From the first demonstrations of Windows on SoC, we have been clear about our goals and have emphasized that we are at the technology demonstration stage. As such, we have no further details or information at this time."
...and it didn't kill OSX. Although I'm not a Windows fan, the haters are purposely missing the obvious comparison.
...if it won't run Window's software?. Most everything else is a simple compile away from user's being able to be run on any device they own. Microsoft is really going to screw the pooch here if they don't ensure compatibility with existing software.
Perhaps we should dig out our old Acorn RISC PCs?
They had an ARM processor to run RISCOS, and x86 processor so you could run Windows.
I'm sure you could still make a hybrid machine like the RISC PC in this day and age.
.NET requires you write in C# or some other .NET CLR compatible language.
Furthermore, a lot of implementations of .NET don't support the DLR, which shuts out applications written in Python and other languages whose CLR implementations depend on System.Reflection.Emit.
Which is fine if you're writing from scratch. It's not so fine if you have a 200,000 line program written in C/C++.
Based on comments to Slashdot's article about Miguel de Icaza's founding of Xamarin, I think Microsoft expects developers to write a brand-new application from scratch in C# specifically for platforms for which Microsoft provides the .NET Framework. For example, instead of porting an existing iPhone game to Xbox 360 using XNA Game Studio, a video game developer should plan an Xbox 360-exclusive game based on the same setting or a different setting. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
When i first read the post in my rss reader I was (like most people here) going "well, duh"...
But to be fair, if you read the article its a little more in depth than that. However, lets go back a number of years to the days of windows NT 3 - it came on PPC, MIPs, etc (it was also the last platform to do so in the window suite). It wasn't just an x86 platform. However, not many people ran Windows NT either, so the uptake was (in a word) minimal. I think alot of the thinking back then was "why would i want to run windows on a MIP's machine when i have OS "... ultimately the platforms were doomed simply because there just wasnt either the user base or the support for those architectures... Itanium is another example of this particular nightmare/failure (when compared with amd comparatively cheaper 64bit verison of the x86 chipset).
However, DEC Alpha was a bit different, it had an embedded way of running the x86 chip's instruction set, and so maybe no one will come along and write a set of hardware capable of translating x86 instructions back to ARM's core. BUT, thats exactly how the AMD chips used to work, risc core translated up to an x86 instruction set. That in itself doesnt really solve the problem because you'd still want to run x86 windows on top of your x86-to-arm core.
But dont kid yourself that there will be no apps day one for ARM platform for windows cause you can guarentee windows wont go in alone, they'll bring a host of developers along with them and probably apply some incentives for using it.
Also, while the windows core may have failed on PPC, MIP's, etc, the reasons for its success didnt exist - this is not true of the arm platform. Not only is it the "cheap" platform (which is what x86 used to be back in the win nt 3 days), its also small and power friendly. Its also capable of doing alot more then just running Windows. Windows 8 may not be a huge success on ARM, and hopefully thats not going to make MS go "we'll drop arm" cause ARM really has some huge potential both at the desktop and the server, and I hope microsoft see that potential as something they can work with in the long term. Hopefully, their dev tools make it relatively easy to target both arm and/or x86.
As for the virus/malware comment, as many people have pointed out, the bugs will probably translate across in the porting process - however, we'll probably just get a whole host of new ones to add to it... then again, flash and java wont care whether its arm or x86 (and who knows what to expect of .net really?)...
Geeks say "Search for the answer first; ask if you need help finding it."
Put identity in the browser.
The limits of his knowledge could have been extended by typing two words into a search engine. Instead, he typed 56 into a forum and made someone else answer his question. Get real.
Put identity in the browser.
For most of the things I can think of Windows on an ARM being useful for, x86 is compatibility it not that big of a deal. Having looked at network attached storage units lately most of them seem to run Linux or BSD with Samba. An ARM version of Windows would be great for these things. It would instantly have NTFS and native Windows file sharing because it IS Windows, and no additional software is needed.
Holy shit I'm fashionable now?! I can't wait to inform the ladies.
In all seriousness, technology is fashionable now, nerds are not.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
It's still windows because the API calls are the same, the code just needs to be compiled properly. Imagine trying to run code compiled for x64 on x86. You can't do it. Its the same difference here. .Net applications will still run on the CLR, Visual Studio will get an extra platform option to compile to x86, x64, Itanium, ARM or Any CPU. At most its a quick recompile of source, no reason to brand the OS differently because of that.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I doubt there are many if any legacy ARM applications for Windows.
Are they laughing now, after destroying the Java virtual machine method of "compile once, run anywhere"? :-)
The next intel dual-core will be one core for x86 instructions and one core for ARM instructions
And one core for PowerPc, just in case.
Ouch.
WINE Is Not an Emulator. It's an implementation of the Win32 API, and a way to load programs. It translates Windows x86 binaries into Linux/BSD/MacOSX x86 binaries.
Not a sentence!
WINE = Wine Is Not an Emulator. It will only run Windows applications on the same platform. WINE would need some serious alterations (and probably a fork) to run run x86 Windows apps on an ARM chip. You're not just translating OS functionality, which is what WINE does. You also have to translate CPU functionality, which is a much uglier process that kills performance.
Slashdot is becoming Yahoo! Answers? Holy Christ, now there's a scary thought.
How many shrink wrap software packages do you have that were written with .NET managed software?
I would bet ZERO. .NET is popular for custom business software and open source/freeware windows apps.
But nearly all commercial Windows software packages for consumers are native x86 code. .NET doesn't really enter into the picture for backward compatibility. .NET is one way to handle dual architectures going forward, but it doesn't do anything for legacy Native apps.
The real question is how integrated can we get? Emulating a full x86 PC and running x86 Windows inside of it is trivial; you can do that today on an ARM platform with existing software. But since ARM doesn't make desktop-class CPUs, it's slow.
What's more interesting is, how much can you integrate this with Windows? Can you emulate the application itself, intercepting API calls, and passing them off to the native ARM Windows libraries? That's the approach taken by Apple, and unlike the 68K -> PPC transition, for the PPC -> x86 transition they were doing it entirely in userspace...
That is totally wrong.
winelib has a lot of machine-dependent bits which makes it non-portable to non-x86 architectures, at least not yet. So you cannot compile winelib + your code for a different architecture.
However, you can run wine + your program using qemu userspace emulation. This allows you to run windows applications on linux on any architecture.
So, wine does indeed allow you to run unmodified x86 windows apps on ARM linux.
It could even work on windows on ARM if you port qemu (which already works on windows on x86) and provide posix emulation and an X server.
It really does seem that Win8 will be released in ARM/x86 form with little direction or segmentation between them.
HW players will then decide what to build and put it in the market, so we will simultaneously have:
Win8Arm and Win8x86 tablets hitting the shelves.
That might seem like an interesting battle for survival in the marketplace, but it doesn't seem like a sane way to plan products...
If Microsoft decided to make a clean break and create a new tablet version of Win8 only on ARM, that would make a lot more sense, than simply throwing things out there and watching what happens.
.NET runtime has existed for ARM since .NET 1.0. PocketPC was around 2002.
Except if I have an application, I have to hope that the developer is still around, and willing to support it to make that recompile. I also have to hope that they're willing to give me the proper installers, as the stuff I have on disk probably isn't even going to load on this thing.
have people forgotten what WINE stands for?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
ARM for MS, in the near future, is for their tablets and smart phones - seems to me. They know Intel's product line won't cut it in the next few years and they know they absolutely have to have an answer to iOS and Android. Most older programs that can't be recompiled are irrelevant to this space anyway. I am assuming that there is a lot of stuff written in .net that can be tweaked for tablets and recompiled.
Backwards compatibilty has held MS back for years. This is a chance for a little platform reinvigoration. I think it's going to work out well for MS. Especially when they have tablets running Office. (not a big fan of Office, but it seems to give corporate folks hard ons ). I am an Apple fanboy, but I am excited to see the competition from MS and Google. I think it is going to help push things forward.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
The only stupid question is one that isn't asked. Nobody knows everything (and I asked the question before I had my first cup of coffee). I got my UID by being on slashdot ten years or so ago. I'm 59 years old and my synapses aren't as well oiled as they used to be.
My first computer was a slide rule. My second computer I built out of two potentiometers, a voltmeter, and a battery. When I was a teenager I made a little extra cash by converting cheap transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes and selling them to friends.
These days it's fashionable to be a nerd, but I was a nerd back when we were pariahs.
Since Linux runs well on ARM, then I don't see what the big deal is about not being able to run legacy Windows apps in Win 8. All you'd have to do would be to install Linux dual-boot on your Windows 8 machine, and run your legacy Windows apps under Wine in Linux. Maybe I still need more coffee...
You forgot something in your post-- "GET OFF MY LAWN!!!"
The Alpha version of NT 4 and Windows 2000 release candidates could run x86 code fairly well. I do admit the Alpha was very very fast and ahead of its time so emulating x86 in Arm would suck goatballs but it could be possible.
http://saveie6.com/
True, but its still Windows. None of the code needs to change between the two platforms, you don't need compiler directives to switch calls based on if you are targetting windows for ARM or windows for x86 or windows for x64. That is why it is still windows even if things need to be recompiled. Most things are not just a recompile away from running on different OSes. That's why games don't come out for Linux. Sure, some apps may not work, but almost all of the .Net ones will.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Nope, it won't work. http://wiki.winehq.org/ARM Wine translates between API's, not between different assembly instructions. winelib would let developers easily recompile some x86 windows programs to run on ARM Linux. But either way a recompile is necessary. Some games with open-source engines will travel over just fine. For those programs that will never be re-compiled for various reasons, you'll have to use QUEMU and dig out a Win98 or minimal Linux +wine. (Perhaps React-OS will be ready at that point as well)
No? So their talking out their ass as usual trying to protect their chip market.
Many of the apps I run are written for Windows API's, not Intel's assembly language. This is the biggest reason MS managed to get the large market share it has. Devs, Devs, Devs and they did it providing stable API's. Sure they've played fast and loose but if a dev writes to the published API's, it should run on any version of Windows w/o to many issues.
As to things that depend on Ring 0 access, they're all in the same boat aren't they.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
The issue with using Wine is that it's not an emulator, it's a compatibility layer. It passes x86 code from the legacy Windows app to the processor to be executed. It only works if you're running on an x86 system.
There have been projects like Darwine that have incorporated an x86 emulator (in this case QEMU) along with the Wine layer to actually run legacy Windows x86 apps on PPC hardware. This is possible but the result will be very slow due to emulation.
A better method would be to have the OS take care of everything emulating x86 code when needed like Apple's Rosetta because you could use the actual Windows 8 DLLs and pass only the needed x86 code to the emulator. Microsoft has a team doing x86 emulation (or at least virtualization) but it's unknown how portable it would be to ARM. Obviously they have decided that this isn't going to be implemented though, probably due to it being too slow to be useful.
If you want to see how slow an ARM is at emulating x86 code, fire up DOSBox on your smartphone or hacked console. Granted that will also be emulating things like VGA and all but the x86 emulation is the brunt of the work. It's not going to be fast, and it would be a poor experience for most users.
Wine already has their own implementations of native Windows libraries, so they should be able to rebuild those native for ARM. No need to use Microsoft's libraries. In fact, depending on just how incompatible Windows 8 ends up being (.NET only?), Wine might be the only way to get native Win32 C/C++ code to run - assuming WINE itself can run in whatever sandboxed environment MS releases for ARM.
WINE native Windows libraries + X86 emulation for app logic should work for ARM Linux as well. And performance shouldn't be all that bad, assuming the app isn't doing crazy amounts of processing. Better than the old virtual PC pure emulation that people used to run on PPC Macs.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Businesses may even rely on such applications for business-critical processes.
Said businesses won't buy Windows 8 on arm for those apps. For those apps, they will buy Windows on traditional Intel, as they have had for years, which will still be available, for years.
Non-issue.
(and if the app's speed is not important, they might virtualize it, should they so desire. (I'm sure there will be a x86 emulator of some type for Windows/ARM))
If you had only posted "You're right. I was being unnecessarily snarky and I shouldn't have." and stopped there, you would have been golden.
Microsoft still makes you have different install media.
Only if you buy the OEM versions - the Retail versions contain both x86 and 64 bit versions.
Well, I know I'm a whole lot more sucessful with the ladies than when I was young. As to fashion, when I was a teenager with my short hair and glasses, I wasn't the least bit sucessful. Back then, few young people wore glasses. Mostly, young people didn't wear glasses and old people did. These days, almost all the young folks have specs, but the geezers have had cataract surgery that negates the need. With the new implants you don't even need reading glasses.
I attribute the myopia to too much reading at too young an age. Today's young people grew up with computers, while computers grew up with me.
If nerds aren't fashionable, why do so many here seem be nerd wannabes?
Two hints to success with the ladies -- self confidence and eye contact. a decent haircut and a goatee don't hurt, either.
As to technology, it was always fashionable. The difference between now and then is just that the technology was a lot more primitive, but everybody wanted a big twenty five inch color TV and a good stereo.
Free Martian Whores!
Running Linux on an ARM CPU right now, works fine :)
I'm surprised Microsoft is seriously trying to push Windows onto multiple architectures. This is going to be either a joke or a nightmare. Architecture independence and closed source just don't mix.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Just the existing software needs a recompile. I'm sure that Microsoft will port over their development environments and then all that's left is to port any ASM sections in your code and recompile. For something like Firefox, it could take all of fifteen minutes to create the ARM version.
But similar to the PowerPC->Intel x86 transition that Apple went through, I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft came out with support for "universal binaries", along with automatic generation of said binaries in their Visual Studio IDEs.
I'm 24 and have had retinal detachments in both eyes (4 total! huzzah!) resulting in cataracts which have been removed, so don't feel too old. You better bet your ass I need reading glasses though. How did you get around this? And this damned goatee won't grow though, tug as I might on my sparse stubble.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
When you say it's "Still Windows", that comes with certain expectations. One of those is that legacy apps will work. If they don't work out of the box, then people are going to feel deceived.
I'm sorry your assumptions were wrong.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
I had a cataract caused by steroid eyedrops. You most likely had the older monofocal implants. Mine was implanted in 2006, three years after the FDA approved the CrystaLens. I also was extremely lucky. Most people have 20/20 to 20/25 vision after a CrystaLens implant, the eye I got it in is now 20/16. The other eye is still 20/400, but then again I can see things REAL close with that eye.
My beard was sparse at age 24, too (My youngest daughter is your age).
FOUR retinal detachments? Jesus H. Christ! I had a detachment a couple of years after the implant, and that vitrectomy was hell. FOUR? Wow, man, you've been through some damned shitty times. I hope you didn't have to get a scleral buckle, that would even be worse (Thank God I never had to have oneof those)! I got lucky with the vitrectomy as well; the surgeon said "if I had a retinal detachment, I'd want it right where yours is." The vision after the vitrectomy was actually better than before the detachment, because I don't have any "floaters" in that eye now.
And actually, even though I am pretty old, I don't feel old. Yet. My dad says I'm old, my daughter says "you're not old. Next year you'll be old!"
Free Martian Whores!
You should be able to play Wolfenstein or DOOM; 386s were about 16 to 20 mz back then IIRC. The Atom I had in the netbook was 100 times as fast (although I don't know about the size of the chip's instruction sets, which would make a big difference).
Back around 2000 the average x86 CPU was only ten times as fast as the original IBM PC's 4 mhz. I'm not familiar with the ATOM chip, but unless it's a real throwback it should be able to emulate an old x86 with little problem, provided the emulator was well written (preferably in assembly).
Free Martian Whores!
Oh no, Windows 8 competitiors will be pretty much Windows 7 (and XP of course).
We're talking about Windows 8 on ARM which, in the short term, is likely to be going into tablets, smartphones, ultra-small-and-long-battery-life netbooks, servers which are more like souped-up NAS devices and probably other embedded systems. Apart from Netbooks, those areas are currently dominated by iOS, Android and Linux, not windows. MS has pwned netbooks - but they're under pressure from tablets (and possibly ChromeBooks in the future) which smoke them on battery life.
Windows 8 on x86 is a different kettle of fish - it will be running on desktops, full-fat laptops and industrial strength servers where it will be mainly competing against Win7 and XP and most definitely will have some form of "emulation" to support legacy (Intel said as much). Maybe ARM will have another try at the desktop/workstation market, but don't expect ARM to be competitive in such systems any time soon.
Leaving the compatibility mode out of Win8/ARM makes perfect sense because (a) its for smaller systems which can do without the bloat (b) the target users are less worried about legacy apps (which don't make any sense on tablets or phones) and (c) XPMode almost certainly uses virtualization technology (i.e. the x86 code still runs on the physical processor) rather than emulation or translation, so it couldn't be ported to ARM. Emulation/translation is something you can only get away with when you're moving to a faster processor (6502 to 68k, 68k to PPC, PPC G3/4 to Core).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If I'm having lunch with a medical doctor and want to know if there's a new treatment for arthritis, I don't whip out my phone and look it up on wikipedia, I simply ask the doctor. Same thing. If I'm in a "room" full of computer geeks and have a question about a CPU, I simply ask. Which has the added advantage of stimulating discussion.
Free Martian Whores!
Different groups have different social norms. Nerds' norms are that you take responsibility for your own education, meaning that you reasonably attempt to answer your own question before putting it on other people. You got your ID ten years ago. I got my first one in '99. We both know the Slashdot norms about this.
I'm younger than you, but not as much as you think. I had a slide rule. My first computer at home was in 1978. Like you, I studied math with log and trig tables in the back of the book. Since you and I were in class with a teacher, would we have asked him or her to look up and interpolate for us? I, for one, would have been glared at for asking a stupid question.
You see, there are stupid questions, or rather questions which are stupid given the context. In addition to the example above, I can give plenty of others. If you post a long explanation about the details of arthritis, I fail to read the whole thing, and then I ask you a question which you already answered, that is a stupid question given the context.
You didn't have coffee. All is excusable. ;)
Put identity in the browser.
PowerPC to x86 translation are inherently harder because of opposite bytesex : each architecture packs its data the other way around.
So it's a little bit harder to take some short-cuts, you need completely emulating the inverse way to store data, and then throw some optimisation on it.
On the other hand, ARM supports both, it's selectable. No matter the source architecture (PPC or x86) a translated software can store its data as-is in memory without any problem. That's already one less problem to take care of.
(You still have all the nasty side effects of the intel ISA to care of, but at least these are slightly easier to optimise out. They are either immediately used or overwritten by the next arithmetic instruction)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
An ARM version of Windows would be great for these things. It would instantly have NTFS and native Windows file sharing because it IS Windows, and no additional software is needed.
Except that this functionality is already supported by NTFS-3G and Samba in most of the linux-powered box I've seen (all the media players I've seen can use FAT-32 and NTFS formated partitions, and all run custom Linux firmwares). And these box constructor's can do it for free, and customise it as much as they want (as long as they abide the GPL and publish said customisation).
Using Windows 8/ARM would require them to pay license to Microsoft, throw out of the window all the efforts they've already spent on the Linux platform, and try doing their customisations again (not necessarily possible, depending on what Microsoft provides them). No visible advantages for them.
The only thing that currently Windows knows to do better is Active Directory. Microsoft needs to introduce quite a lot of prorietary extensions and other technology that integrate Windows 8/x86 of the desktop better with Windows 8/ARM on the NAS. And that requires that the people start massively using Windows 8 on their desktop for the benefits to be accessible.
The only advantage that Windows has as an OS is that users are used to its interface
- but users won't interact with a graphical user interface on a NAS box.
and compatibility with legacy software
- but few users run legacy software on NAS boxes (well there are a few crazy guys who run Torrent clients on their NAS box, but Linux has already enough Torrent clients) (And Microsoft announced to ARM to x86 compatibility neither).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Thank you!
Put identity in the browser.
I disagree. One could run an entire technology site nowadays without needing to refer to Mickey$oft. Thanks Apple ($341 bn market cap), thanks Google ($170 bn market cap) and thanks to all those trying to give us a better future.
when Crapple and Poogle come out with something that isn't a locked down POS you let me know, they sure haven't managed it yet.
Has nobody caught the unwritten undercurent? The fact that intel made this statement makes it appear that M$ *is* going to drop intel for ARM, as the rumor mill has it... or at least intel firmly believes it to be true....
Surely Microsoft isn't going to say that their virus troubles are related to their use of Intel x86 architecture. Microsoft ignored the support that Intel put into the processors for decades. As we all know these days, buffer overruns are the source of most vulnerabilities, but had the compilers implemented BOUND instructions on buffers (for example), a lot of this could have been avoided. As far back as Windows 3.1 (Enhanced Mode), they could have utilized these protections. Microsoft had their MSC around that time and could have built in those protections which could have been used immediately in the operating system (assuming MS wasn't compiling Windows with Borland :-) ) There have been plenty of very stable operating systems on x86, and the Intel x86 Operating System Writer's Guide has been available since day one.
No offense to WINE, but compatibility isn't great, and even with fully compatible apps, it's never a polished experience. I'd take a solution that passes calls to real libraries over WINE libraries any day.
I think you're a little confused:
- Atom chips *are* x86 processors, they don't need to do any emulation.
- A typical CPU from 2000 such as a late gen Pentium III (P4 was introduced in 2000) was definitely more than 10x faster than the IBM PC's original 4.77MHz 8088. Try, thousands of times faster at the very least. Tens of thousands of times faster, perhaps.
Since Intel is the one that holds the key on the x86 architecture, nVidia can now make CPUs. That means nVidia is going to make desktop versions of the Tegra series, some of the best handheld chipsets on the market. Just because Intel won't make their ARM processors backward compatible, doesn't mean that nVidia will as well.
Well, I never asked many questions in high school because my teachers were not competent. Once I learned to read they didn't teach me much else.
College was different. Asking questions in college was far more productive than researching. With the internet it's a lot easier to do basic research (looking in wikipedia for citations to follow, for example). Old habits die hard.
Free Martian Whores!
The first tear in my right eye at age 14 I got a buckle (my older brother had the same at age 12), my second tear in that eye happened while I was watching the second LotR in a theater, and I got the vitrectomy. I don't see very well in that eye even still, the oil they put in after the vitrectomy was the cause of the cataract. Things are in focus in that eye but retinal damage prevents me from being able to read very well or recognize faces. I believe the medical term for the type of tear I had was "giant retinal tear", and I have an awesome video of the surgery since my specialist would give lectures with it.
The first tear in my left eye (age 22) was after they removed the cataract in my left eye caused by laser to prevent a retinal detachment.... good plan, right? I got the vitrectomy in that eye first, but then they had to go back in after a flap got dislodged but was mostly being held by the laser.
However, it's hard to feel bad about any of it because of two things. My uncle was blind from age 8 onward because of his retinas detaching (he would be almost 80 today) but went on to be a programmer, so if he could do it completely blind from age 8, I could probably continue if I ever completely lost my vision. Secondly, my sister had detachments in the same places as me about 6 months after the fact except for the last one (the day after my surgery she was in there getting a preventative buckle). While she was recovering from her second surgery in her right eye, her eye actually deflated as the gas they replaced the vitreous with actually leaked out, causing her to lose complete vision in that eye.
I could have it a hell of a lot worse.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Man, I've been really lucky.
Free Martian Whores!
It's not my assumptions that you have to worry about. It's the assumptions of regular users, who aren't going to understand why this "Windows", which is supposed to be the same as my desktop Windows, can't run their Windows apps, before they promptly return it.
There will probably some sort of man-made emulation software to take care of it. For example, something QEMU-based or something like that. Of course it wouldn't run at full speed, but it just seems like the natural progression of things for there to be an emulation layer eventually, whether it's official or not.
I am not devoid of humor.
see parent post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2168340&cid=36176792 redundancy lol
NO NO NO! At least you are a bit closer to the truth! THERE IS NO BINARY TRANSLATION IN WINE! THAT WOULD BE AN EMULATOR! You should have stopped typing when you said it was a "implementation of the Win32 API" and you would have been correct.
Now somebody is talking! :-) Very interesting idea for some software. Wine-Core on Windows, integrated with a x86 emulator, and using native APIs whenever possible! This will give a HUGE performance boost compared to a full-fledged machine emulator + guest OS.
Do you have Marfans? I'm also 24 and have some expressions of the disorder. I was lucky enough not to have any detachments (yet) but my lenses are a bit off requiring me to use glasses as well. I'm 6'4" and my damn bones won't stay in their sockets/joints. My spine is only slightly crooked (lucky again), but my bones are pretty brittle/fragile. It seems I'm always dislocating, breaking, or fracturing something. I'm still waiting to find out if I'm at risk for valve dissection. Do you share any of these?
If I'm having lunch with a medical doctor and want to know if there's a new treatment for arthritis, I don't whip out my phone and look it up on wikipedia, I simply ask the doctor. Same thing. If I'm in a "room" full of computer geeks and have a question about a CPU, I simply ask. Which has the added advantage of stimulating discussion.
That is EXACTLY! what I do! I bust out the smartphone with 3G (or use WiFi if I'm at the emergency room) and do background research before I engage an expert into a discussion. This frees up time for more advanced subjects because the basics are now under my belt. It also helps me to ask the "right" questions, and makes it easier to hold the attention of the expert I'm trying to discuss the topic with.
The old ways of being dependent on live teaching for assimilation of information is far outdated by todays standards. I quit high school after two years once I realized wikipedia had more accurate information than my teachers did, used the gift of literacy and the advents of the information age to study for myself, scored no less than 95% on every GED category, and went straight on to college. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, and my opinion of your opinions is that they are not only relegated to the past, but HARMFUL when forced on our youth, as they are holding back the very progression of the human race itself.
In trying to simplify it I left it a bit incorrect. It translates the API calls, not the binaries. It makes no changes to the file on disk, it just intercepts API calls and outputs the equivalents. (This is still not totally correct, but it is an improvement.)
Not a sentence!
No, actually I was extremely nearsighted which strains the retina. By extremely nearsighted I mean my prescription used to be -15 in both eyes. Various doctors have told me I have Stickler Syndrome or Pierre Robin, but while I have symptoms of both, I personally don't think either is accurate.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
As far as I know, Stickler's is a similar connective tissue disorder, but affecting collagen instead of fibrillin.
You're right, however I don't think I really have it, I think I just have a big nose, a cleft palate and myopia. I don't have any of the other issues associated with Stickler's, and I've never been diagnosed as such, just off-hand comments from retina guys from time to time. I guess there is a chance I do have it, but not any of the major complications related to it.
::shrug::
Actually, now that I think about it I was diagnosed Pierre Robin Syndrome as an infant, but my parents told me they left the support group since I really didn't have anything close to the problems the other parents' children had and they felt guilty.
Seriously, best of luck with everything. I hope once you get all the information about your condition you turn out to be as lucky as I am and it's not a constant interference with your life.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.