Microsoft Details Windows 8 for ARM

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."

Comments

Please,

[SuricouRaven]

May we have the old Borg icon back for this story?

Re:Please,

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, the Borg only operates on x86/64 machines

Re:Please,

[Sponge Bath]

...this is laziness. No borg icon warrented.

Maybe a slacker borg with an arm replaced by a bong: "Dude, where's my cube?"

Re:Please,

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why? So far t his is just the ARM version. It sounds more like they just are going the cheap route, and not fulling integrating the ARM version with their Intel version.

Basically to my thinking: A) Other Win8 versions have these features, then this is laziness. No borg icon warrented. B) All Win8 versions lack these features (then why the big deal about the ARM version?), then this is a closing of the walls intentionally for a purpose. Borg icon deserved.

There is another possibility: Microsoft has massive legacy commitments. Practically all the world's boring corporate stuff that isn't old, specialized, or hip, enough to be running on some sort of intimidating big iron or linux/web/cloud/thingamawhatsit. Most of that software is absolute dreck, and rather boring, but much of it is also quite critical to a variety of high value operations and impossible or uneconomic to port or even modify very much. For this reason, Microsoft's walled-garden options on x86/64 are pretty minimal. Architecturally they could roll it out tomorrow(Software Restriction Policies are basically that, but under the control of your domain admin); but the customers that matter would scream like nobody's business.

However, since there isn't any legacy Windows software or legacy Windows device drivers, on ARM, since it has never run on ARM before, there is no legacy market to worry about. Microsoft has a free hand, more or less. As with the xbox, the other recent situation where MS started clean, without legacy impediments, they apparently see a walled garden as their best option.

It remains to be seen how long the momentum of more-or-less-open x86 IBM compatibles will carry them into the future; but so long as the legacy/in-house/custom demand is there, they'll be hard to kill entirely. However, I'd say that it is "outlook not so good" for open platforms any time somebody starts a new one from scratch...

Re:Please,

[DickBreath]

The problem with Microsoft's new walled garden is that they have an already entrenched walled garden competitor: iOS.

They also have an entrenched open competitor: Android.

Windows on ARM is just Microsoft's PS/2 like attempt to recreate its monopoly on the new platform where all the excitement and momentum already is. It's not that Microsoft's existing Windows platform doesn't also have momentum, but that is already in a very long slow decline and Microsoft knows it. (I hope they know it, since the decline of PC sales and thus Windows sales was in their quarterly report.)

Re:Please,

[Anthony Mouse]

It remains to be seen how long the momentum of more-or-less-open x86 IBM compatibles will carry them into the future; but so long as the legacy/in-house/custom demand is there, they'll be hard to kill entirely. However, I'd say that it is "outlook not so good" for open platforms any time somebody starts a new one from scratch...

I don't think the in-house and custom software is going to save anything, because the large majority of new business applications have the application itself running in the data center and the users access it through a web interface. And legacy software is replaced by new stuff the more time passes.

But I don't think the future is as bleak as all that, for different reasons. The largest impetus for closed platforms comes from the wireless carriers who want to make sure you aren't doing anything as unscrupulous as making a VOIP phone call over WiFi without paying them for minutes, and who subsidize your phone and in so doing become the "customer" of the device who gets to decide how open it is.

Here's the thing: I expect that inside of five years, flip phones are going to be almost completely dead. Tomorrow's top end Android handsets will still be ~$500, but today's will be $50. Some handset maker who still has a tooled factory churning out "obsolete" phones will realize that with nothing more than a software patch, they can sell them retail as WiFi-only devices that still make phone calls and browse the 'net as long as you're at work, at home, at school or anywhere else that has WiFi. The poorest customers will quickly realize that $50 or $100 once is much less expensive than $50/month indefinitely, even if it means they can't make calls in their cars, and many will do that. The carriers will then realize they're getting $0/month from these customers and that if they offered a cheap bring-your-own-device plan, they could be making $20 or $30/month from customers who by and large don't actually tax the cellular network because they use WiFi 90% of the time, and a big chunk of those people will pay that so their phones will work in their cars etc. And so will a big chunk of the people who had been buying subsidized phones, who realize that $500 once + $30/month is a lot cheaper than $200 once + $100/month. (The savings for everyone comes from the fact that you're taking a massive load off of the cell towers and putting it on DSL and cable lines where adding bandwidth doesn't require outbidding everyone else for finite wireless spectrum.)

With any luck that will be the end of carrier device subsidies and with it the end of locked boot loaders etc. Even the carriers seem to be looking for a way out of subsidizing premium devices for most of their customers. But do that and you open the door back up for innovation: Once people no longer need carrier approval to sell Android and other Linux-based devices that work away from home, you have the possibility of things like the Spark tablet or whatever Canonical feels like producing start to take hold, which can easily be made to run both Android apps and Linux native apps, and you can see the possibility of an open platform gaining a sigificant foothold. Not to mention whatever products come out of Google buying Motorola Mobility.

If that happens then Microsoft will have to decide whether to go the Apple route and try to keep their ARM platform closed, or stick with their traditional forte and open it up. And I kind of feel like there isn't any room in the market for more than one Apple.

Fracturing

[Sarten-X]

Y'know, for all I hear about Linux being so fractured, I'd expect to see more coherence from Microsoft and Apple.

The vast majority of distros differ in small ways, but they all work with mostly the same paradigms. To install software, you usually install a package from a repository. To add something not in the repositories, it's usually "./configure; make; make install".

Looking at the Windows world, there's worse fracturing, but because it's all under one brand, it's somehow okay. Inter-process communication is done with DDE - no, wait - OLE. I mean sockets. Really .NET has its own IPC and you should use that now. On one system, you install with an executable file obtained from the vendor. On another system, you install through a storefront.

At least Linux accepts that it's fractured, and each distro often learns from the others.

Let it begin...

[neokushan]

Whenever the first tidbits of the UEFI secure boot cropped up that many people immediately cried foul over, I was one of the people who stood up and said "Not so fast, everyone - it's mandated that it be enabled by default, but there's nothing to say you can't customise it or disable it". Many people were quick to jump on MS, stating that it's just to stop Linux adoption and such and still I persisted in saying that MS wasn't the bad guy, if you didn't have an option to disable UEFI secure boot, it was the OEM or motherboard manufacturer at fault, not MS. I got into many heated debates about this point.

However, that was regarding Windows 8 x86/64.

Windows on ARM will demand that UEFI secure boot be enabled and that there is no way to disable it. Any Windows ARM tablets or PCs that come out will not be capable of running anything other than Windows - not Linux, not Android, nothing. Since Windows ARM won't be sold directly, it means there will be absolutely no way to buy a Windows ARM machine that runs other OS's - not even if you built one yourself.

It is with this that I retract any previous objections to people crying foul over the UEFI Secure boot malarkey. Even though Windows 8 x86/64 is still "fine", the issue of the ARM version is too great to ignore. So by all means, commence flaming.

Re:Obvious *benefit* is the drivers

[sunderland56]

Drivers are the largest problem with x86 Windows - well over 50% of the stability problems and blue screens come from badly written drivers. Microsoft has a process to submit a driver to their labs for testing and approval today - but (a) they make it insanely difficult and expensive, and (b) the market doesn't care whether a driver is approved or not.

Drivers are also the largest security hole there is - a kernel module has full and complete access to your system. People claim to be concerned about security, but then install third party drivers without a second thought.

Overall, it looks like Microsoft is doing exactly what people have been asking for - a more secure Windows environment. Locking down software to approved sources only, and getting rid of creakingly old APIs that date back to Windows 3.1, will make it faster, more stable, and more secure - but now people are complaining.

Note that for the hardware/software developers - hobbyist or professional - there will be a developer switch, to turn off security and allow you to load unsigned/unapproved programs and drivers.

Re:Well

[0123456]

Exactly. It's legacy software that's tied mainstream computing to the x86 architecture for two decades.

It's legacy software that's tied people to Windows for two decades. Break the compatibility and no-one needs Windows any more.

Re:Well

[0123456]

It's API compatible minus features not physically available on a tablet. A quick recompile and voila, instant port.

You're not a software developer, are you? Because I wouldn't want to work with someone who thinks that they can just do a 'quick recompile' and ship a product out the door.

And, in any case, that wouldn't help the bazillions of old, unsupported Windows programs that keep people tied to Windows.

Re:Please wait...

[hairyfeet]

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!"