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Windows RT Could Make a Comeback
SmartAboutThings writes: Windows RT has been a terrible flop for Microsoft, but it seems the company isn't yet ready to totally abandon the concept. There's now speculation that Microsoft is working on Windows 10 RT, as mentions of the 'new OS' have been spotted inside of Device Guard which is a new security feature for Windows 10 Enterprise that scans a program for a digital signature, and determines whether it's trusted or not. Judging by its name, the OS should not be confused with proper Windows 10 that we see on Microsoft's mobile devices, as Windows 10 RT is a version of the OS that is designed for the desktop class PC and tablets.
Windows CE (colloquially 'wince' as in the reaction you have to dealing with a device running it) was an entirely separate beast from other Windows.
Windows RT was an ARM build of Windows 8. The thought being that these fancy ARM devices were everywhere, and MS could get a slice of the pie if they just could run on it. Hence the push to 'Universal' apps with a cross-platform runtime so that simple applications would work equally well on ARM and x86 customers. Problem for MS being that Windows isn't that exciting without the legacy software library. Also, Intel made some progress towards appropriate devices for the tablet space (mostly lagging now on radio technology, but not all tablets need direct WWAN capability). In a tablet form factor, the screen dwarfs any delta between a contemporary energy optimized Intel versus ARM.
Basically, Intel and MS get the most benefit out of each other. MS without Intel is not exciting, and Intel isn't particularly well positioned under 10W TDP, except if the user needs to run Windows.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
It's an even shittier story than that. Windows RT was a real OS. It had powershell, win32 support (although only for signed applications), it had true multi-user sessions, true multi-tasking and windowing ... it was just the ARM compile of Windows 8 but wouldn't allow applications installations without a Microsoft certificate. Arm Windows 8 is as real of an OS as Ubuntu for ARM is also a real OS.
But what's really stupid is that it's not gone. Windows 10 Mobile is already an ARM build of Windows 10. With continuum it's got mouse and keyboard support etc. If you turn the zoom way down on the dpi settings the browser pops into desktop mode because it thinks it's running on a PC. Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 Desktop are even on the same build version now. So Windows RT didn't go away it's just hiding inside of Windows 10 "Mobile" aka the ARM compile of Windows 10.