Microsoft announces Full Windows 10 on ARM with full x86 win32 apps emulation

Posted by – December 8, 2016

Microsoft shows Full Windows 10 on ARM, on Qualcomm Snapdragon 820:

we have an x86 Win32 desktop app running transparently with no changes, thanks to the magical emulation technology we’ve built into Windows 10 on ARM. This is Adobe Photoshop running great on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, we made zero changes to the app, it runs perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_GlGglbu1U

Microsoft says that they will launch this with the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, due to be released in 2017. But here for this demo, they show their full Windows 10 with x86 apps support running smoothly on the currently shipping Qualcomm Snapdragon 820.

It might be that Microsoft and Qualcomm want to have at least the performance of their next generation 835 to be able to offer a satisfactory x86 apps emulation performance.

The first usage case Microsoft aims for is the ARM Powered Laptop.

I think Microsoft should also try to run full Windows 10 with x86 apps emulation “as an app” on not-too-heavily-modified Android, support Android powered full Windows 10 Continuum concept. They can work with Qualcomm and Google on that. Basically dock your Android phone and it should run a full Windows 10 UI with full x86 apps support on the external Lapdock/desktopdock.