back to article Microsoft's Windows 10 ARM-twist comes closer with first demonstration

Last December, Qualcomm said Windows 10 would soon arrive on the ARM architecture, and it's had its first demo. The news hit at MS Build, with software architect Arun Kishan and Lead Program Manager in the Window Core Kernel Platform Group Hari Pulapaka showing the capability off in this video. It's an x86 emulation layer …

Page:

  1. Captain DaFt

    “a full desktop experience”

    "When devices arrive later this year, Pulapaka said ARM kit will cover all form factors, from phones up to laptops"

    So we're back to this again? Sheesh!

    It didn't work in the nineties, it didn't work in the noughties, the 'Metro' phone UI for every thing isn't working in the teens.

    "Eine Schnittstelle über alles" Doesn't work!

    Google knows it (Android for phones, Chrome for notebooks)

    Apple knows it (IOS for phones, Mac OS for computers)

    Why is Microsoft being so pigheaded about this daft idea?

    Somebody trying to win some silly bet at MS HQ?

    1. a_yank_lurker

      @Captain DaFt - Slurp is run by children not adults. Adults understand that there is big difference in how different devices are used. These differences mean the OS and apps are different as the devices are used very differently.

      1. Updraft102

        It seems so simple, yet MS fails to get it. Canonical has finally caught on to the idea that one to rule them all won't work... kudos to Shuttleworth for having the guts to admit he was wrong. MS will just keep going in the same foolish direction... "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead."

        Still, if this thing can credibly run x86 programs (at least as well as a current low-end native x86 PC), I'd be impressed. I don't expect that it will, given the difficulties usually seen with emulation (namely that it soaks up a lot of CPU cycles), but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

        So, MS, the ball's in your court. Instead of the 7-Zip installer, how about a full PC benchmark suite? If it runs x86 stuff "just fine," let's see how "just fine" it is. My single-core, 12 year old AMD Turion laptop will run the 7-zip installer without issue too (I just tried it... works fine, very quick and easy)-- but does that mean it's a viable PC by today's standards? You'll have to set the bar higher than equaling what a 12 year old laptop can do.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Emulation efficiency

          Still, if this thing can credibly run x86 programs (at least as well as a current low-end native x86 PC), I'd be impressed. I don't expect that it will, given the difficulties usually seen with emulation (namely that it soaks up a lot of CPU cycles), but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

          Successful counter-examples to exist, usually involving a hybrid of emulation and dynamic translation. Emulating PowerPC on x86 worked reasonably well for apple; Digital's FX!32 worked rather well in the x86 to Alpha direction.

          My favorite example is however Transmeta Crusoe (remember them?), where the entire O/S, drivers, and the userland were emulated/translated from x86 to the native code. I still have fond memories of my Fujitsu P1000-series laptop, which for its time was incredible - with the extended battery, it was good for 20+ hours of real work (coding, compiling, simple test runs). It did not feel any slower than a contemporary native x86 laptop either, despite being emulated all the way to the bottom. It was also rather rugged despite being compact and nice to travel with, with none of that stupid razor-blade thinness of the "ultrabook" bandwagon.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Exactly, a software like 7-zip is very simple, little access the OS, and doesn't need much external devices. It's all up how this can deal with complex application and devices support. Drivers need to be native, thereby what, for example, about your scanners, printers, graphic tablets, colorimeters, etc.. (all things routinely used with Photoshop, given they show it in the slides...).

          1. Named coward

            printer drivers

            "Drivers need to be native, thereby what, for example, about your scanners, printers, graphic tablets, colorimeters, etc.. "

            Not holding my breath on running photoshop on windows on arm but the devices you mention have had user-mode "drivers" for over a decade now.

        3. Ken Hagan Gold badge

          "Instead of the 7-Zip installer, how about a full PC benchmark suite?"

          Prediction: Not only will MS not do that, they will write words in the EULA which try to stop anyone else doing that and publishing the results, like they did with .NET. (I don't know if that language is still there, but the first few versions were certainly "If you benchmark the software then you will get MS's permission before publishing the results." type of thing.)

          I assume that such clauses are unenforceable, but IANAL, as they say.

        4. Sandtitz Silver badge
          WTF?

          Performance @Updraft102

          So, MS, the ball's in your court. Instead of the 7-Zip installer, how about a full PC benchmark suite?

          Am I the only one who saw this Dec 2016 Win10 demo with programs like Photoshop and World of Tanks running on Qualcomm silicon?

          1. Updraft102

            Re: Performance @Updraft102

            I had not seen that video before. That's certainly better than a 7-zip installer as a demo... makes me wonder why they chose installing 7-zip as a demo in the other demo, given how small and light 7-zip is (it's not much of a test, in other words). It did look quite promising in the PS/WoT video.

            Still, I'll have to wait and see some independent reviews. The WoT demo seems like it would be more of a demonstration of the GPU capabilities of the device in question (and no doubt it seemed to do well in the video), and about the Photoshop example... it seemed like a pretty small, simple image, so I don't know how much it would tend to bog down a system to apply the effect. I've never used either PS or WoT... but they certainly were better demonstrations than 7-Zip.

            My concerns would be:

            (1) how compatible is the emulation? Are there some programs that won't run properly on it? How many?

            (2) how stable is it? Does it ever hang, crash, or exhibit other unwanted behavior (that would not happen on an equivalent native x86 device)?

            (3) How even is the performance? It's not hard to imagine that some functions will work well, while others really slow things down. Are the demonstrations of WoT and PS representative of typical performance a user of such a device will see across the board?

            (4) How effectively does an ARM device compete with a similarly priced x86 device in x86 performance (in addition to performance per watt of power used)? It could be a good trade-off if it performs almost as well as a given x86 laptop, but has considerably lower power consumption... on a desktop, it's less likely to matter. Obviously, all else being equal, less power consumption is better, but that's the question: Will all else be equal?

            I would like to see this work, even with my contempt for Windows 10, since more competition in the hardware market is a good thing. If ARM devices can credibly compete in the x86 space with actual x86 devices, that sounds fine to me, even if I won't be using any device that requires Windows 10 myself (unless 10 undergoes some big changes, which I still hope for, even though I do not expect it).

            1. Richard Plinston

              Re: Performance @Updraft102

              > (1) how compatible is the emulation? Are there some programs that won't run properly on it? How many?

              As I understand it, the emulation is x86 and _not_ x86-64.

      2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Black Helicopters

        Nah, it is the 'one size fits all' mentality

        that seems to prevail in Redmond.

        "You will use Modern/Metro/Tiles/TIFKAM/??? or else"

        "We will slurp all your operations"

        "We will bork your machine with forced updates and take no blame for the resulting mess"

        etc

        etc

        This is the MS way under SatNad folks, better get used to it!

        1. Daniel von Asmuth
          Windows

          ARM

          ARM:: Arm Runs Microsoft (or maybe Alternative Run-time 4 Metro)

          (Intel shares dropping....)

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Captain DaFt - Slurp is run by children not adults."

        Well that explains why Chrome OS is so limited I guess...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Isn't Google unifying Android and ChromeOS as well?

      The temptation of a single line is strong, because it means to save on development costs.

      While the iPad sales stalled, and one reason is it can't run macOS applications.

      Phones are probably different enough, unless you plan to dock them somewhere and use the as full PCs.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: Isn't Google unifying Android and ChromeOS as well?

        "The temptation of a single line is strong, because it means to save on development costs."

        You (as well as Google and all the rest) should distinguish between unifying at the API level and unifying the end-user shell or skin.

        The former is probably essential if you want to attract developers to a "new" platform. Simply trying it out needs to be no more than a compiler switch. If they see potential in the results, they will be willing to tweak their code for the "extreme device metrics".

        The latter is utterly counter-productive, precisely because of the extreme device metrics just alluded to.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "should distinguish between unifying at the API level and unifying the end-user shell or skin."

          The problem is that once management got a unified kernel and its API, it inevitably start to look at applications able to run on it on any device (see UWP....) - and there's where you hit failure, I agree.

          Regardless of what some people may think, form factor and input/output methods highly impact application designs, it's not just a matter of moving widgets around to fill the available space, application needs really different UIs.

          There are also OS issues, mobile application segregation is fine there, but an utterly hindrance for more complex tasks, and no, I don't want to share my work only through cloud storage, for several reasons...

          1. skane2600

            Re: "should distinguish between unifying at the API level and unifying the end-user shell or skin."

            "Regardless of what some people may think, form factor and input/output methods highly impact application designs, it's not just a matter of moving widgets around to fill the available space, application needs really different UIs."

            Yes, it's surprising that so few people seem to understand this. Even when automatic resizing and flow are available they create additional restrictions on the design which can lead to an inferior experience.

        2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Isn't Google unifying Android and ChromeOS as well?

          You (as well as Google and all the rest) should distinguish between unifying at the API level and unifying the end-user shell or skin.

          Ding!

          I think this is where Apple is heading - the underlying kernels will coalesce (which kind of implies that Apple will shift over to ARM processors for their desktops and laptops - if Microsoft prove that the emulation layer gives sufficient performance then I don't see Apple as being too far behind. Especially (as other posters have said) Apple already has experience with this in going from PowerPC to Intel.

          And it means that they can use their own ARM designs and substantially reduce their BOM costs.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So we're back to this again? Sheesh!

      ISTM that the one reason Surface tablets sell is because they *can* run x86/Win32 code.

      You might not use that capability all the time, but opening up the platform to 30+ years of PC apps is a big compensation for having a rubbish native app store.

      MS already tried the opposite approach - force all apps to be rewritten for a new common platform - and look how well that went.

      1. Bandikoto

        Surface 3 and better can do that because they're x86 devices. Prior ones ran WindowsRT and software had to be recompiled for them.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Surface tablets down 25% in last quarter

        You comment is out of date - surface tablets were down 25% in last quarter

    4. NiteDragon

      I think one O/S across devices can work - I just don't think a company that as arrogant as Microsoft can do it.

      You actually have to talk to customers and listen, do iterative builds - realise privacy is actually important in some people's lives; rather than pretend to engage and then "know better" and think "we're important - they will learn how to do it our way".

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But it does work. I'm sitting here on my sofa writing this on my Windows 10 tablet. If I was out I would be writing this on my Windows 10 phone. If I needed to write more I would put the keyboard onto the tablet which would turn it into a laptop, and if I wanted to write an essay I would go into the study and use my PC. It's an almost seamless transition. Why would I want to swap OS on that path. Where should the switch occur? Between phone and tablet or when I attach the keyboard to my tablet to make it a small laptop?

      The only discontinuity is that my phone doesn't run x86 applications. This latest development fixes that, which is neat, though I personally don't have any requirement to run x86 applications on my phone due to its relatively small screen size.

      1. Updraft102

        It works if you accept the UI compromises that have to be made to have it work on dissimilar devices. You may be willing to accept all of that, but I've grown accustomed to the UI excellence of Windows XP and 7 over the past 16 years, so I expect nothing less than that now, and I can't get that in 10 (and it's gotten worse since 10 first arrived). I assign zero value to the ability to snap a keyboard on a tablet and have it be a "laptop," so that doesn't offset the negatives for me.

        The thing is, Windows 10 is already a jumbled hodge-podge of desktop and mobile elements. The desktop itself is all Win32 with its typical common controls, and so are all of the x86 programs that run on it. Many of the system dialogs, however, have had their Win32 versions removed, and they've been replaced with "app" versions. There's little rhyme or reason to it. Right click the Win32 desktop, then select Personalize on the menu. Instead of the Win32 personalize menu you would have gotten with 7 or 8, you get an "app" personalize menu. Hit "themes," and the same old Win32 themes dialog appears.

        In time, that Win32 themes dialog will probably end up being an app too, which is going in the wrong direction for the desktop user. Even though these are system dialogs that have multiple entry points, they all fall under the control panel hierarchically, and that, of course, is being systematically dismantled and replaced with the settings app.

        The convertible device is an edge case. Most devices are not convertible. Why, then, should that specific use case be the one that defines Windows for all devices? A Jack of all trades is the master of none, and a single UI paradigm that attempts to work on everything only ends up in delivering mediocrity to a wide variety of devices. A purpose-built mobile UI is always going to be superior to one that has to make significant compromises to accommodate devices with very different characteristics, just as a without-compromise desktop UI (like the one found in Windows 7) will likewise always beat one whose very existence is a compromise.

        Ultimately, a device needs a UI that is optimized for the manner in which each device is used. Note that this isn't the same thing as requiring a separate OS-- an OS is not a UI. A device that has a small screen and uses touch for pointing needs large UI elements and accommodations for those large UI elements (whether or not it has a keyboard attached); that means a mobile UI. Even a larger tablet with a keyboard attached still uses touch as its pointing device, so a mobile UI is still the best choice. A device that has a large screen and a mouse is much better served by a traditional PC UI.

        In terms of the convertible device, though, I'd say that when it's undocked, it would use the mobile UI, and when it's docked (and has a touchpad or mouse as its pointing device), it would use the desktop UI by default, but that it be configurable by the user if that system doesn't work for him. Perhaps the context switch between docked and undocked mode would prove too jarring. In that case, he could select whichever of the other modes he finds more appealing.

        Having both modes jumbled together, which is the current Windows 10 design, isn't ideal for any platform.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @updraft102. Interesting.

          Things have rationalized somewhat since Windows 8. Selecting "Personalize" from the desktop takes you to the personalization page in windows settings. Themes are accessible from there and they are implemented in the new style. I don't think there is much left involved with configuring the device that is still glaringly inconsistent. Certainly the average non IT user would be unlikely to see or need anything beyond the Windows settings which incidentally are directly accessible from the home/start page.

          As for convertible devices they are implemented exactly as you suggest. From the windows settings (of course) you can configure it to switch automatically, not switch, or ask. There are a couple of other settings too that allow you to configure how the taskbar behaves in tablet mode which further blurs the line between the two modes. If fact the line between the two is even fuzzier as in laptop mode the touch screen is still there so you can scroll a list on the screen with a finger. This is actually quite handy as it compensates for the reduced functionality of a laptop glide pad when compared with a desktop mouse. So rather than being an edge case its arguably the best of both.

  2. bazza Silver badge

    Microsoft's Windows 10 ARM-twist comes closer with first demonstration

    First demonstration? We've been here before...

    Those of us with memories longer than the current crop of MS management will remember MS showing Windows 7 + Office + an Epson printer driver recompiled for ARM running perfectly well on an ARM dev board at a trade show back in, 2008-ish?

    Great, we all thought, they're going to do fat binaries, support ARM for desktop and servers, brilliant idea, early days of course but it can only get better (speed, software availability, etc), hooray for low power data centres, laptops, that'll all emerge as soon as the chip guys catch on.

    And they turned it into Windows RT, and the whole sorry saga of WinPhone, Windows 8, etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      Re: Microsoft's Windows 10 ARM-twist comes closer with first demonstration

      > Those of us with memories longer than the current crop of MS management will remember MS showing Windows 7 + Office + an Epson printer driver recompiled for ARM running perfectly well

      And before that, in the mid-90's, MS had NT4.0 running on PowerPC and DEC Alpha. In fact the reference to NTDLL immediately made me think they had dusted-off the original code and replaced the PowerPC code with ARM assembly.

  3. Hans 1
    Joke

    Old joke

    Microsoft has no leg to stand on, tries ARM.

  4. Timmy B

    I don't get the moaning...

    This would be great if it works. I would love a phone that looks like a Mobile 10 device when it's in my pocket and allows me to run a few mobile looking apps (Email, Browser, SMS client and perhaps a Sat Nav) but is also capable of being a full proper PC when docked. Perhaps able to screen project onto a surface or similar tablet. 90% of what I do day to day doesn't need massive specs and what does could be moved to virtuals that I remote into using this one device. All the same apps installed and ready in whatever format I want one one device. Other than the pure and simple anti-MS bias what isn't to like about having this. Perhaps the only downside is that if it's stolen then everything is gone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I don't get the moaning...

      Moaning about M$ is good for upvotes. Especially moaning combined with heavy breathing. Also, some on here believe their TRS-80 or Commodore 64 were the ne plus ultra of computing, and every attempt at advancing since then has been some grand violation of basic universal laws.

    2. Updraft102

      Re: I don't get the moaning...

      It's less than ideal because it keeps Microsoft on this inane "one UI to rule them all" path. It only delays them realizing that PC users don't need a phone UI and phone users don't need a PC UI. As long as they keep trying to blend them together, they're much less likely to come to the realization that no single UI paradigm is going to serve any one platform (let alone all of them) as well as a dedicated UI would.

      I'm never going to accept elements of a mobile UI on a desktop. I've got six years before it becomes critical, but if MS hasn't delivered a credible, compromise-free desktop UI by then, then Windows ceases to exist, as far as I am concerned. I don't want it to cease to exist-- I've been using it for more than a quarter of a century, and even though I've already begun the transition to Linux (with the expectation that I will need it come 2023), I'd really rather not leave Windows for good.

      Is that what you consider anti-Microsoft?

  5. bombastic bob Silver badge
    Meh

    Wheeeee...

    Win-10-nic ARM. So exciting.

    1. Timmy B

      Re: Wheeeee...

      @bob

      That's it I have to ask. I've missed a post/meeting somewhere. What on earth do you mean by "Win-10-nic". I understand that someone at microsoft dropped you when you were a baby and you've never quite gotten over it but out of all of your sayings I can't figure this one. Please educate me.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    ARM kit will cover all form factors, from phones up to laptops"

    Like anyone other than the most ardent MS bound company or the blinded fanboy is going go with the phones, after they completly shit on those that bought into then with Win8 and then got abandoned.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ARM kit will cover all form factors, from phones up to laptops"

      I don't feel terribly abandoned having bought my phone a little under 2 years ago for £122. It's a 640XL and came with Windows 8. Now its on Windows 10 and updated to the "Creators Edition" last month. It gets security patches every month (already had the May one). Sadly it probably won't get the next "release" at the end of this year, so I've only got another 17 or 18 months support (monthly patches) left.

      Can you name any other phones (in or out of this price bracket) that get monthly security patches every month for 3.5 years after you buy them? If such a beast exists it might be what I move to in 18 month time, though I do hope it won't have to be a iPhone.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's going to run slower and expect bugs/crashes.

  8. alain williams Silver badge

    Oh goodeee

    it looks as if this will result in the market coming up with a better choice of ARM based laptops that I will be able to install Linux onto.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Oh goodeee

      Unless they come with the kind of TPM lockdown that Microsoft favours on x86… ;-)

      More ARM-hardware is coming because slowly the amount of ARM-only software (on Android) that is really damn useful is increasing.

  9. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Linux has been on ARM devices for a while. And:

    # apt-get install p7zip

    [...]

    Suggested packages:

    p7zip-full

    The following NEW packages will be installed:

    p7zip

    0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

    Need to get 268 kB of archives.

    After this operation, 812 kB of additional disk space will be used.

    Get:1 http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ jessie/main p7zip armhf

    etc. but that "arnhf" gives the game away - this isn't emulated, it's fully native.

    1. Chemist

      "Linux has been on ARM devices for a while"

      More to the point Firefox, GIMP, Chromium and buckets of other stuff ( as you suggest entire Linux distros) have been native on ARM for quite a while.

      I've been compiling a lot of my stuff from x86 to Arm for the last year ( and indeed now I'm now often writing/compiling programs on ARM and then moving those to x86.

    2. patrickstar

      Windows has had ARM support for quite some time too... there's even a distribution for Pi's like yours (unfortunately not called Raspows).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Windows has had ARM support for quite some time too... there's even a distribution for Pi's like yours (unfortunately not called Raspows)."

        Little in the way of applications though ! Pi has LibreOffice as well as the one's mentioned above plus all the other usual linux stuff like VLC, VNC, editors, compilers, e-mail clients, hugin, imagemagick, kdenlive, inkscape, pcb layout, etc., etc.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "Windows has had ARM support for quite some time too... there's even a distribution for Pi's"

        Presumably you mean the W10 Core? That's the one aimed at IoT. Another reason to reject it.

      3. Richard Plinston

        > there's even a distribution for Pi's like yours

        There was a thing called Windows 10 IoT which ran on a Pi3 (not on Pi1, 2 or Zero) which was not like Windows at all - no OS GUI or command line. It was merely a boot loader for a single UWP which had to be written on a desktop PC.

  10. jMcPhee

    An emulator... just like WINE. Wonder if it runs any better. At least WART was native code.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      WINE is not an emulator

      Hence the recursive acronym/backronym - Wine Is Not an Emulator.

    2. Steve Knox
      Holmes

      Never looked into what the acronym WINE means, huh?

      I won't spoil it for you. Suffice to say that what WINE is is much tougher to get right than a simple CPU emulator.

      1. patrickstar

        Emulating the full hardware of a modern computer is quite tricky. As in millions of lines of code tricky, with a gazillion little workarounds for things that don't follow the specs.

        But emulating what a userland application sees is pretty simple. Just a simple interpreter for the opcodes, the necessary parts of memory management, and mapping the syscalls to the host OS. Couple of weeks of work for a single developer perhaps, though it won't perform well without a lot more.

        1. cambsukguy

          Reminds me of the time a friend wrote an 8051 emulation, with support for our specific HW, serial ports etc., in C on a PC. It did indeed only take him a day or so to flesh out a working base.

          It allowed us to run the code without bothering with the silly device boards etc until it worked well enough to do so.

          It ran faster of course despite emulation so had to be slowed to match where required by timing loops etc.

          Ah, the days where two of us coded the entire device from boot, mind you, python allows that for modern embedded systems too, as long as there is an entire OS present first.

          1. Richard Plinston

            > python allows that for modern embedded systems too, as long as there is an entire OS present first.

            MicroPython does not require "an entire OS", see Micro:bit or PyBoard.

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like