

Building Windows for the ARM processor architecture - pcj
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/02/09/building-windows-for-the-arm-processor-architecture.aspx

======
Someone
Content-wise, the good thing is that there is quite some information here. One
thing that caught my attention is the phrase _"Metro style apps available from
Microsoft that support a wide variety of industry-standard media and document
formats"_. It made me wonder whether we will see a PDF viewer from Microsoft.

Style-wise, as often when reading MS 'blog posts', I wonder how many
marketeers were in the committee writing it. This post is way longer than its
content deserves, with repeated almost content-free adjectives such as
"unique" or "intrinsic". To make things worse, it seems to suffer from serious
copy-paste errors (for examples, search for "has a very high degree of
commonality" or "enables creativity").

The post also sometimes almost conflicts with itself due to what I imagine to
be marketing forces. For example: _"WOA builds on the foundation of Windows"_
vs "With WOA you can look forward to integrated, end-to-end products—hardware,
firmware and WOA software, all built from the ground up"

I also found it funny to read _"of what we call, for the purposes of this
post, Windows on ARM, or WOA"_. Are they really thinking that will prevent
people from calling it WOA elsewhere? In a similar vein, we have _"Note: This
is not a product plan or even a hint at a product."_ and _"(which are not the
subject of this post)"_ Phrases like that belong in a press release, not in a
blog post.

As a final reason why I do not like the writing style, I had to laugh when,
over 1300 words in the article, I find "This post is organized with the
following sections"

~~~
josephcooney
A metro PDF reader from MS for windows 8 has already been confirmed
(apparently) [http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-
tips/windows-8-modern-...](http://www.addictivetips.com/internet-
tips/windows-8-modern-reader-is-metro-based-built-in-pdf-reader/) although it
wasn't in the developer preview from what I could see.

------
freehunter
I was wondering how Intel was liking the Windows on Arm development. The third
paragraph of this is a bit telling in that regard. It's hard to tell if it's a
shoutout to Intel/AMD to assuage their fears or just an acknowledgement of the
work everyone put into it as a whole. Either way, it reads as a "don't worry,
Intel, you still matter to us!"

------
ghurlman
_Sinofsky also said that the Windows-on-ARM machines will come with several
Office apps — Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — that have been tuned to
run in a very battery-efficient manner. But Sinofsky said that, although those
applications will run in the traditional Windows desktop, they will be the
only programs allowed to do so, other than components of Windows itself._ [1]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one... why would they limit the
OS, instead of saying that Metro was it, and have the Office15 team build out
Metro versions of their applications?

Having the desktop/classic mode be only for built-in utilities and Office
seems, at best, _extremely_ short sighted.

[1] [http://allthingsd.com/20120209/windows-on-arm-complete-
with-...](http://allthingsd.com/20120209/windows-on-arm-complete-with-next-
version-of-office-to-arrive-with-rest-of-windows-8/)

~~~
dmethvin
Just a guess, but Microsoft makes a lot of money from Office so I suspect the
Office group _insisted_ on being there at release to show existing customers
their commitment. No doubt there are currently a lot of restrictions about
what you can do on a WOA desktop, they may not have even provided anything
like the full Win32 API. It wouldn't surprise me to see them loosen up those
restrictions eventually.

Plus, by keeping all the desktop utilities like Explorer and Control Panel as
desktop apps in WOA it reduces the amount of work that needs to be done. When
Windows 8 is being used on a desktop PC you'll want those to still be desktop
apps, and they probably won't be used enough on a tablet to justify rewriting
them all as Metro applets.

~~~
ghurlman
I'm sure they insisted on it, but they could have done more than flattening
the style on their buttons. Having Office as the lone desktop app is going to
piss off more Windows developers than it's worth. Choose your own
baby/bathwater, forest/trees analogy here.

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mrpippy
If I get this right, the only apps you will be able to run in the Desktop are:

\- Internet Explorer 10

\- Office 15 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote). What about Outlook, Visio,
etc.?

\- Windows Explorer

\- Wordpad? Solitaire? Remote Desktop Client?

And that's it.

If I want to, say, unrar or un-7z a file I just downloaded, I'll need to go
back to a Metro 7z app to do that?

Or what if I want to use Chrome or Firefox? Does this even comply with
Microsoft's EU obligations (the browser ballot, etc.)?

Leaving the desktop environment only available to Microsoft apps is a very
slippery slope, and I think it'll be a serious point of contention for
developers and users. It really has to be all-or-nothing.

------
daeken
I'm glad they finally released good details on what is and isn't possible on
Win8/ARM. My takeaway from this is: while they're not doing it, nothing is
stopping someone from emulating Win/x86 applications on ARM. I've been playing
around with doing it (nothing serious, just working through some of the tech
challenges and using it as an excuse to learn LLVM better) and while there are
challenges, it's definitely not insurmountable.

I have a feeling that if Win8/ARM takes off, this could be a big market --
maybe I should take it a bit more seriously.

~~~
freehunter
As the owner of a HP Touchpad, I'm incredibly disappointed by this line

>Windows on ARM software will not be sold or distributed independent of a new
WOA PC

I don't want to have to buy a new tablet with the same hardware just to run a
new OS. Hopefully Technet subscribers can get a copy, or XDA et al can manage
to provide. It'd be nice to have a legal option, though.

~~~
wmf
Your TouchPad doesn't have UEFI and there are no Windows drivers for the
TouchPad either.

~~~
freehunter
It would be possible, though probably not easy, if the proper people had the
proper access.

~~~
wmf
There's a Hackintosh community so I'm sure there will be a Hackdows community,
but MS isn't going to ship a version of Windows that requires "community"
drivers to work. As far as MS is concerned it's WHQL or nothing.

~~~
mappu
The Hackintosh community is greatly benefited by the fact that OSX's Darwin
kernel is open source.

For instance, Atom support was lost somewhere along the official way, but
third-party patched kernels exist to reintroduce it (c.f. Nawcom et al).

------
angersock
_"End-users are technically restricted from installing a different OS (or OS
version) on a device or extending the OS, so this is generally not possible,
and rarely supported by the device maker. "_

and

 _"We architected our approach to ensure that software and peripherals can all
benefit from the diversity enabled by the ARM architecture, along with the
choice of form factors and manufacturers, and the openness of the platform."_

seem to be in conflict. How is my being unable to install an OS a good thing?
These comments (along with later mention of UEFI and some other things) cause
me some discomfort.

Well, looks like Apple won the hearts and minds of consumers--we now are
looking at a future with much greater integration of software and hardware and
much less freedom. Thanks folks.

EDIT: To clear up potential confusion, I'm not saying that what Apple did was
not good business or that their success was totally bad--I merely am pointing
out that the tight UX pushed by that company (and then aped to varying degrees
by others) has out of necessity driven things in this direction.

EDIT2: _"In fact, WOA only supports running code that has been distributed
through Windows Update along with the full spectrum of Windows Store
applications."_ Oh goody.

~~~
cop359
The first sentence is related to policies of the device maker and the second
is to M$'s policies

~~~
freehunter
Ever since I've gained the ability to downvote, I've used it exclusively for
people who write M$. Ignorance should never be tolerated.

------
plaes
...and locking out Linux (and other open source operating systems) with the
help of the UEFI secure boot.

[http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-
manda...](http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/01/microsoft-mandating-
secure-boot-on-arm-making-linux-installs-difficult.ars)

~~~
wmf
Buy an Android tablet and jailbreak it.

~~~
freehunter
Without a way to install WOA (MS says they won't provide images for it), that
won't help.

~~~
wmf
We're talking about Linux. If you want Linux on an ARM tablet, buy an Android
tablet and jailbreak it. You don't _have_ to buy a Windows tablet (unlike,
say, PCs in the 90s).

~~~
blario
And there lies one mistake MSFT is making. I definitely wouldn't pay good
money for one of these if it can't run anything besides Win8. Perhaps only if
it has a well supported jailbreak.

~~~
wmf
People who immediately remove your software (and sometimes ask for a refund)
aren't a good target market. Seriously, why do you want to buy a Windows
tablet and remove Windows? Why not buy what you actually want?

~~~
blario
Because with Apple and MSFT requiring UEFI locked ARM devices, how much choice
do you think will be available for people looking to buy ARM tablets they can
run any OS on?

------
yangyang
So it will include desktop support. That makes it much more interesting.

~~~
makomk
It'll include desktop support, but Microsoft will be the only one allowed to
release desktop apps for it, which makes it rather less interesting.

------
recoiledsnake
Biggest takeaway is that everything is a PC. That ARM tablet you're holding in
your arm? It's a full PC and won't be artificially crippled to being a
consumption device only. Plug in or a dock a keyboard/mouse and you get the
full notebook experience.

~~~
greyish_water
Are you sure about that? This seems to say exactly the opposite.

 _In fact, WOA only supports running code that has been distributed through
Windows Update along with the full spectrum of Windows Store applications._

 _WOA PCs will be serviced only through Windows or Microsoft Update, and
consumer apps will only come from the Windows Store, so you never have to
worry if a program will run because you are not downloading or installing from
a DVD outside of the store experience. A WOA PC will feel like a consumer
electronics device in terms of how it is used and managed._

~~~
sliverstorm
This seems like a policy adopted to help avoid angry customers making a big
deal about how they cannot install this or that application from their PC.
Consumers are familiar with the App Store concept.

Ergo, they probably won't be working hard to _lock_ the platform from other
applications (what little applications that will exist, that is)

------
fasteddie31003
I think the video is an insight into the quality of Apple vs. Microsoft
products. Apple would never let out a low quality product video like the one
linked in this article. They didn't even have a decent microphone for the
video and I was distracted by background static. Apple's culture embraces
every aspect of a product's launch, with a product video being clean and
simple just like their end products.

~~~
ttrashh
Apple wouldn't release something like this because they are a black box. At
least Microsoft is blogging about the process and eliciting feedback along the
way.

