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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..."
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.
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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?
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.
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).
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.
"MS Office ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Steve Ballmer, 2012
839*929
The problem with those cheap wince based laptops, is they're advertised as running windows, which means people buying them often expect that they run the same windows they may already have on a desktop, or have at work etc... Once they get it, they are usually severely disappointed and this usually results in a very high return rate.
Another ARM version of windows is likely to do the same thing, disappoint users, fragment the brand and end up with lots of returns...
An ARM based version of linux on the other hand could sell very well, if its properly marketed... Users would have no preconceptions about it, and take the devices for what they are. Just make sure there is a proper linux distro, not the crippled versions that came with the first round of x86 netbooks... And make sure the benefits of linux are well advertised to users, especially the package manager.
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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.
PPC, MIPS, Alpha, IA64 and i860 i believe...
What do all these have in common? Noone used them.
At the time, these architectures offered vastly superior performance to x86, but couldn't run legacy windows apps or legacy apps designed for other OS that typically ran on the hardware. Since there were so few users, virtually no commercial software was ever ported to non x86 windows and very few people ever even bothered to port open source code to them.
MS' biggest strength - proprietary lockin, is also their biggest weakness...
If your going to move to an incompatible hardware platform, and lose access to your legacy software in the process then you'd be a fool to run windows... Linux already runs on ARM, will not lock you in like windows is designed to, costs nothing, and already runs 99% of the same software the x86 version does.
And ofcourse if everyone is running open source code, the architecture becomes irrelevant and we can switch again very easily if something better than ARM comes along.
It's also possible to have a range of architectures for different purposes, ARM or MIPS for low power devices, perhaps x86, IA64 or Alpha for high performance devices where power usage isn't a concern.
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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.
People who bought netbooks didn't really wanted a netbook - what they wanted was a very small, mobile and cheap version of the notebook computer they used before (hence in the end most netbooks came with Windows). Unfortunately this combination makes for very poor usability.
This is what killed the netbook market and why the iPad is reigning supreme. It takes a while for people to figure out that what they originally wanted from a particular product does not perform as they originally envisaged.
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And that is the really shocking thing that will actually kill the platform - fragmentation. All of these different versions will be incompatible with each other, forwards and backwards. Intel must be laughing their asses off.
The lack of a standard "ARM platform" has already been a big problem for Linux netbooks. They're all x86 because each ARM platform is different and requires a different BSP, making ongoing support a complete nightmare. I have to say, I really expected Microsoft to force the ARM SoC makers to standardise.
The lack of any sort of x86 emulator is really the icing on the cake. The big advantage of Windows is gone. But I suppose there is still a possibility of a third-party emulator like the original Virtual PC for Mac.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
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.
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.
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No he earned it by understanding the limits of his knowledge and asking pertinent questions.
Easy: If people buy a Linux laptop and software doesn't work on it, they blame Linux. If people buy a Windows laptop and software doesn't work on it, they blame the software.
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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...
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