Microsoft launches Windows 10 on ARM

From Microsoft&#x27;s Secure Boot OEM policy[0]:<p>&gt; The firmware setup shall indicate if Secure Boot is turned on, and if it is operated in Standard or Custom Mode. The firmware setup must provide an option to return from Custom to Standard Mode which restores the factory defaults. On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enabled.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;windows-hardware&#x2F;design&#x2F;compatibility&#x2F;systems#systemfundamentalsfirmwareuefisecureboot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;windows-hardware&#x2F;design&#x2F;com...</a>

The difference between this and Windows RT is that this will emulate an x86 chip to allow you to run apps compiled for Intel.

I hope and expect Apple to watch this closely. Playing with the iOS 11 on an iPad pro 10.5 suggests a bit what a Macbook Air might look like in &#x27;appliance&#x27; mode with one of their customized ARM processors.<p>The really interesting bit however is whether or not ARM notebook computers can become a &#x27;thing&#x27; for real. There have been a couple of runs at it by people without the resources to do something competitive with the thin and light laptops of today, doing it &quot;for real&quot; has always seemed a bit out of reach.<p>It becomes more and more clear to me that something like a Chromebook type OS and a walled garden app store is a really attractive proposition for people who don&#x27;t do development on their machines.

Something I wanted from Apple.<p>First time Microsoft seems to be more focused than Apple (which works on semi-innovations like touchbars).

So, as Windows will be available on ARM, we will have more laptops with ARM, more than just Chromebooks. This seems like a win for users.

I wish they launched an OS that has bare minimum interruption with things I do not care about. I seriously do not need anything from an OS than just a super lightweight interface to interact with applications and filesystems. Why is it so hard?<p>The mail.app vs outlook is a great example of useful and useless UI. Both app does the same.

Does anyone know if&#x2F;when Windows 10&#x27;s x86-on-ARM thing might come out for <i>phone(s)</i>? I don&#x27;t really care for the emulation on laptops but I need to upgrade my phone and this is a factor.

Do the devices that it runs on make good linux machines?<p>I would love something as light as the Galaxy Tab S2 (Less then 400g!!) that I can use with Linux and a type cover.<p>I would be able to work everywhere I go. Because carrying around 400g with me all the time would be worth it.

The 24-hour, always connected battery life dream may be a reality by this time next year.

I&#x27;m not a fan of ARM CPU but I&#x27;m quite curious about the x86 emulation on Windows 10 ARM platform, does it run like qemu-user-static-x86 just like how Wine did? (while all x86 syscall&#x2F;WinAPIs have direct replacement on Windows 10 ARM)<p>Should someone generously share some articles, I’d really appreciate that help.

I thought Intel threatened to sue if Windows run x86 apps with Intel emulation on ARM?<p>So QCOM is being sued right and left (Apple, Intel, and governments all over the world)?

So can I dust off my Surface RT that&#x27;s effectively a paperweight?

It will be interesting to see if this ends up in the industrial&#x2F;rugged handheld market, or if Microsoft has conceded that market to Android for good.<p>I guess it could be up to the device manufacturers.

So what are people going to use this for? Servers? Tablets?

What is the performance on the cross compiled apps? What about directx or opengl support? Benchmarks please for chrome or ie or Firefox.

With Microsoft partnering with Qualcomm, won&#x27;t it just increase the monopoly of Qualcomm? Is it even possible to increase monopoly?

Hopefully this partnership will allow Qualcomm to bring the Snapdragon performance on par with the Apple CPUs.

It&#x27;s obviously not easy by any stretch of the imagination to port something as complex as Windows to a new platform, but I&#x27;m still surprised it took THAT long to finish this.

Will developers be able to build classic desktop (Win32) ARM applications?

I&#x27;m curious about how that battery life would be like with a linux installed.<p>Also, I wonder the internals of that x86 emulation, if a linux program can leverage it?

From the same people that brought us Windows RT and ARM Surface tablets... got many of my clients to buy them... and then magically decided &quot;Windows RT and ARM sucks. We don&#x27;t support them anymore.&quot;<p>So I&#x27;ll hold my breathe before recommending ANY of my clients use this.

Intel lawsuit in 3… 2…

Good. I still don&#x27;t want it.

Windows RT 2. We know where that went.

Can&#x27;t wait to see windows on a RPi soon... If windows even can run on 512 megs.