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posted by chromas on Friday November 19 2021, @08:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-last-windii dept.

Microsoft is no longer bringing x64 emulation to Windows 10 on ARM

Last December, Microsoft announced that it would bring x64 emulation to Windows 10 on ARM, a feature missing from the fledgling OS. Windows 10 on ARM already supported x86 emulation but making sure you have a 32-bit installer is not ideal. Initially, Microsoft brought x64 emulation to the Windows Insider Program, although you need a preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver for some ARM machines that supported Windows 10 ARM.

Since then, Microsoft has released Windows 11, including an ARM version. For some reason, the company has now decided to quietly drop any intentions of integrating x64 emulation within Windows 10 on ARM. Inexplicably, it only confirmed this change in a Windows Blogs post where most people would miss it.

Windows Insider blog. Also at The Verge.

Previously: Microsoft Document Details Windows 10 on ARM Limitations


Original Submission

Related Stories

Microsoft Document Details Windows 10 on ARM Limitations 6 comments

Microsoft accidentally reveals Windows 10 on ARM limitations

Microsoft launched ARM-powered Windows 10 PCs with "all-day" battery life back in December. While HP, Asus, and Lenovo's devices aren't on sale just yet, we're still waiting to hear more about the limitations of Windows 10 running on these new PCs. Microsoft published a full list of limitations last week, spotted first by Thurrott, that details what to expect from Windows 10 on ARM. This list must have been published by accident, as the software giant removed it over the weekend so only cached copies of the information are available.

Only ARM64 drivers are supported and no x64 applications are supported (yet). Games that use a version of OpenGL later than 1.1, hardware-accelerated OpenGL, or "anticheat technologies" won't work on Windows 10 on ARM. The Windows Hypervisor Platform is not supported on ARM.

Also at Engadget and ZDNet.

Related: Big Changes Planned by Microsoft - Windows 10 on ARM, Laptops to Behave More Like Phones
First ARM Snapdragon-Based Windows 10 S Systems Announced
Microsoft Pulls Back on Windows 10 S


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday November 19 2021, @08:24PM (6 children)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday November 19 2021, @08:24PM (#1197840)

    Last December, Microsoft announced that it would bring x64 emulation to Windows 10 on ARM, a feature missing from the fledgling OS. Windows 10 on ARM already supported x86 emulation but making sure you have a 32-bit installer is not ideal. Initially, Microsoft brought x64 emulation to the Windows Insider Program, although you need a preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver for some ARM machines that supported Windows 10 ARM.

    What is the point of running Windows on ARM anyway, that you can buy a laptop that runs on less power when you're using it?

    Windows 10 on ARM already supported x86 emulation but making sure you have a 32-bit installer is not ideal.

    32-bit installers are everywhere unless you want something from like the last 5 years, aren't they? You're complaining because you're on a platform Windows wasn't designed for, and they provide you with emulation, but it's not the right kind of emulation! "I ordered this pizza with frosting on it and they were all 'we don't do that' but after I bitched them out for twenty minutes they finally gave up and went to the bakery next door and frosted it. But when I got it home it had vanilla frosting on it, not chocolate! UGGH these total assholes!!1!"

    Since then, Microsoft has released Windows 11, including an ARM version. For some reason, the company has now decided to quietly drop any intentions of integrating x64 emulation within Windows 10 on ARM.

    Shockingly, they probably don't want to keep spending man-hours on niche stuff like this for 10 when 11 is coming out soon.

    Inexplicably, it only confirmed this change in a Windows Blogs post where most people would miss it.

    Because 99.9% of Windows users don't give a fuck about this, probably?

    Somebody here can probably explain to me why this matters, but this whole article comes off as incredibly entitled whining.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @10:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 19 2021, @10:48PM (#1197916)

      It matters because Windows invaded the ARM space to beat out any hope of competition. But consumers aren't smart enough to know the difference so they buy, what they've been told, is a Windows compatible "whatever" that will run all the same software. And Microsoft promised as much. Now that promise turns out to be a lie. And anyone who buys Windows on ARM was doomed from the start. As they always have been.

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Immerman on Friday November 19 2021, @11:10PM (4 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday November 19 2021, @11:10PM (#1197921)

      >What is the point of running Windows on ARM anyway, that you can buy a laptop that runs on less power when you're using it?

      Exactly. Where's your confusion? Lower power draw = longer battery life, and watt-for-watt ARM can run circles around x86/x64. Couple it with a low-power display (e-ink, transflective, etc) and you can run for days between charges instead of hours. ARM is also making big inroads into the server market - when you have a room full of computers drawing $hundreds of power per day, reducing that to $tens to do the same job can have a huge impact on your profit margins.

      Well, that's the reason for ARM anyway, as for Windows on ARM...

      >Somebody here can probably explain to me why this matters, but this whole article comes off as incredibly entitled whining.

      Maybe because pretty much the *only* reason to run Windows is compatibility with the existing (x86/x64) software base? Without that compatibility, what would be the point of Windows at all? It's a slow, bloated, bug-prone, OS whose GUI has gone unstable (as in constantly changing for no good reason) in recent years, whose biggest claim to fame is backwards compatibility with software written all the way back to when wild Cobol programmers roamed the Earth. If you don't have the compatibility, you're better off running a well-polished Linux distro.

      As x64 versus x86...

      Honestly, for a lot of things x86 emulation is more than adequate - except for (as you point out) newer stuff. God forbid I want to run new software on my new computer!

      Even more importantly, x64 means more RAM. That was the driving force behind the move to x64 in the first place after all. 32-bit x86 software only has 32 bits of address space, meaning it's impossible to access more than 2^32 = 4GB of RAM. If you your database, video editing software, game, etc. needs more than 4GB of RAM to run well, then it NEEDs to be x64, there is no other option.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 19 2021, @11:33PM (1 child)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Friday November 19 2021, @11:33PM (#1197930)

        Honestly, for a lot of things x86 emulation is more than adequate - except for (as you point out) newer stuff. God forbid I want to run new software on my new computer ... that the software wasn't designed for ... on an OS that wasn't really designed for the platform either.

        FTFY

        If you your database, video editing software, game, etc. needs more than 4GB of RAM to run well, then it NEEDs to be x64, there is no other option.

        Are any of those three going to do particularly well in the first place on a low-power platform, though? If you're doing heavy-duty transcoding or gaming, wouldn't it work better on x86?

        You don't see me buying a Chromebook then complaining that I can't game on it. Maybe with sufficient force you *can* jam that square peg into that round hole, but is it better to ask why you're doing so to begin with?

        And the feature is going to be on Windows 11 anyway, just not on Windows 10. There are so many qualifiers to this problem it's not even funny.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday November 19 2021, @11:51PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Friday November 19 2021, @11:51PM (#1197932)

          It's a Windows computer - the ONLY reason anyone is likely to buy it is to run Windows software, hence the software *is* designed for it.

          ARM is low *electric* power - not low performance. Some of the newer high-performance ARM chips are beginning to rival mid-to-high-end x64 CPUs. And as I mentioned, ARM is already wiping the floor with x64 of a performance-per-watt basis, which means that for a lot of potential laptop and server software, ARM is already the performance leader. It's only desktops where power consumption is mostly irrelevant that x64 still clearly holds the performance crown. (including "foldable desktops" or whatever you'd call high-performance "laptops" whose battery is only good enough to save you from having to shut down while moving to a new power outlet)

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 19 2021, @11:37PM (1 child)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Friday November 19 2021, @11:37PM (#1197931)

        P.S: Thanks for the explanation though, for real.

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday November 20 2021, @04:40AM

          by Immerman (3985) on Saturday November 20 2021, @04:40AM (#1197999)

          You're welcome.

  • (Score: 4, Touché) by Opportunist on Friday November 19 2021, @10:20PM (1 child)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Friday November 19 2021, @10:20PM (#1197903)

    ...if you need to cripple the predecessor so people would even consider downgrading to it?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @02:25AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 20 2021, @02:25AM (#1197974)

      How many ARM64 Windows 10 boxes aren't capable of running Windows 11?

      That is, Surface Pro X and a few misc clones.

      ZERO? Then it's not like ANY hardware is being abandoned here. c.f. Windows 11 on x86

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday November 19 2021, @10:25PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 19 2021, @10:25PM (#1197906) Journal

    In the past, Microsoft simply had to emulate x86 and x64. The entire value proposition of Windows was all the legacy software that runs on Windows. Much of that software is deeply wedded to Intel and not simply recompiled for ARM.

    Developers of newer software (some years ago) could see this coming and make sure that their software could compile for multiple processor architectures. Those developers are probably well positioned for when/if RISC V ever ascends to challenge ARM.

    I figured that someday, we would reach a point where a lot of legacy software from decades ago might no longer be a "must have" for newer and newer Windows systems.

    Maybe Microsoft calculates that we have reached that point, and some of the oldest non-portable legacy software simply won't hold people back from Windows on ARM. Especially as more and more modern software is on the web. Tons of vertical market applications (eg, specialized business software, accounting, medical software, lending library software, oil change software, cabinet making software, hotel reservation software, etc) are now on the web.

    Just a thought.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday November 19 2021, @11:28PM (1 child)

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday November 19 2021, @11:28PM (#1197927)

      Except they're keeping the emulation for the older x86 stuff - it's only the newer x64 stuff that's getting left out in the cold.

      Which means most prominently that nothing can accesses more than 4GB of RAM - that was the driving force behind moving the 64-bit computers in the first place: 32 bit apps can only access 2^32 bytes = 4GB of RAM. And there's a *huge* amount of software written in the last 20 years that benefits from more than that.

      And while a whole lot of developers may have ARM-friendly source code, vanishingly few actually distribute ARM64 binaries. Just off the top of my head I checked Fusion360 (no 32 bit or ARM support) and Photoshop (added ARM64 support in May 2021, but I'd bet not for the older versions most people are running). Heck, it seems even Microsoft Office is only just beginning to introduce ARM64 support - and it sounds like it's only available for the Windows 11 version.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 22 2021, @03:17PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 22 2021, @03:17PM (#1198576) Journal

        The x86 only emulation fits what I explained. The oldest of the legacy software is probably x86 only. Things from the 1990s or early 2000s before there even was x64. Software that is deeply wedded to x86. Software that may no longer even be commercially available -- even if it could be made to work with a simple recompile / rebuild.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday November 19 2021, @10:41PM (3 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Friday November 19 2021, @10:41PM (#1197914)

    Yep, a 64-bit RISC platform that ran a port of Windows NT 4 and almost got Windows 2000 before Microsoft pulled the plug. Mainly because it simply "was not x86", and even with a translation program (FX32), it just didn't do what Windows users wanted - run common Windows software.

    I'm still a bit surprised that they even bothered with a generalized ARM port. They have had "mobile" versions, but those were never expected to run anything other than pre-installed toy software.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday November 20 2021, @01:46AM (2 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Saturday November 20 2021, @01:46AM (#1197958)

      And those "mobile" versions did horribly in the market as soon as word got around they couldn't actually run "real" Windows software.

      I'm not at all surprised at a "real" ARM version though. ARM is fast catching up with x64 in raw performance, and is already the clear winner in performance-per-watt, which is hugely important for servers and laptops.

      Basically, the writing is on the wall: Unlike Alpha, ARM doesn't NEED Microsoft or "real" computers to thrive - it was born in, enabled, and completely dominated the mobile devices niche. But it's growing up and beginning to compete head-to-head with desktop CPUs. Microsoft can either get on board, or surrender the market to Linux. And given the fact that servers and laptops are now the bulk of the market for "real" computers... that probably wouldn't end well for Microsoft.

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