Windows 8 on ARM comes with Desktop (of course..)

Posted by – February 9, 2012

There has been false rumors going around the web for the past 2-3 months, spread by Mary-Jo Foley of ZDnet and Paul Thurrot of winsupersite.com, that somehow Windows 8 on ARM wouldn’t be getting Desktop mode and full Desktop apps. Those rumors are wrong. In the following video, Microsoft demonstrates (again) how Windows 8 on ARM is going to come with a full Desktop mode with full Desktop apps such as Internet Explorer and Office.

The question of course is how does Microsoft plan to support more Desktop apps on ARM. For example, can we install a full Chrome browser on Windows 8 on ARM, how about apps like Photoshop and Ulead video studio? I expect Microsoft to have support for some recompiled desktop ARM apps in Windows store and support for PC over IP remote desktop for some x86 apps that can work smoothly over remote desktop which I expect Windows Azure to host as a cloud service.

To simplify compatibility, Microsoft is promoting the new Metro style HTML5 based apps system. Sure enough, Metro style apps all work on ARM and x86. But I am also sure that Microsoft carefully plans to also allow recompiled desktop apps on Windows 8 on ARM, they will for sure provide recompilation tools, specifications for use on PCoIP protocols, even partly use some parts of emulation and an ARM based Virtualization hypervisor.