Collating known facts and informed opinion
There is no public pre-release of Win8 on ARM yet (and it might only ever be OEM only)
Should be a Windows 8 beta in February 2012? , but still might not be a public ARM beta
Win8 on ARM will need to be customised extensively by the OEM for their particular hardware
as it is NOT a general purpose system covering all standard components like Windows or Linux on x86 PC’s is
Needs ARM v7 cpu (but all modern tablets have a their cpu / SOC based on ARM v7)
Needs a UEFI firmware/‘bios’
and no existing Android/Thinkpad systems out there have this
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wind...m-the-Maker-of-Instant-Boot-BIOS-205487.shtml
Will have a secure bootloader on ARM (but not on x86/x64)
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...ing-or-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it.ars
Win8 tablet spec
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Microsoft-Tablet-x86-ARM,14504.html
?MB RAM, 10GB storage, 1366x768 screen
Some ARM related information mentioned on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8
There will be an Embedded Windows version of Win8 on ARM
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/News/Microsoft-promises-embedded-versions-of-Windows-8/
Running x86 apps on Windows ARM – not possible or v unlikely. Microsoft have not definitely confirmed that there wont be any x86 emulator, but unlikely in the limited space available
Maybe we will see a 3rd party Virtual Box or Boschs or similar to emulate x86 and some intercept dll’s to thunk the api calls to the relevant native ARM windows dll’s))
Will it run WP7 apps ? (Silverlight / processor neutral apps) – unknown, but should be easy to port
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Port-Windows-Phone-Apps-to-Windows-8-232615.shtml
There is a rumour of some internal HP testing of Win8 on Thinkpad
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/24/hp-testing-windows-8-on-touchpads/
There is no public pre-release of Win8 on ARM yet (and it might only ever be OEM only)
Should be a Windows 8 beta in February 2012? , but still might not be a public ARM beta
Win8 on ARM will need to be customised extensively by the OEM for their particular hardware
as it is NOT a general purpose system covering all standard components like Windows or Linux on x86 PC’s is
Needs ARM v7 cpu (but all modern tablets have a their cpu / SOC based on ARM v7)
Needs a UEFI firmware/‘bios’
and no existing Android/Thinkpad systems out there have this
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wind...m-the-Maker-of-Instant-Boot-BIOS-205487.shtml
Will have a secure bootloader on ARM (but not on x86/x64)
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...ing-or-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it.ars
Win8 tablet spec
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-8-Microsoft-Tablet-x86-ARM,14504.html
?MB RAM, 10GB storage, 1366x768 screen
Some ARM related information mentioned on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8
There will be an Embedded Windows version of Win8 on ARM
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/News/Microsoft-promises-embedded-versions-of-Windows-8/
Running x86 apps on Windows ARM – not possible or v unlikely. Microsoft have not definitely confirmed that there wont be any x86 emulator, but unlikely in the limited space available
Maybe we will see a 3rd party Virtual Box or Boschs or similar to emulate x86 and some intercept dll’s to thunk the api calls to the relevant native ARM windows dll’s))
Will it run WP7 apps ? (Silverlight / processor neutral apps) – unknown, but should be easy to port
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Port-Windows-Phone-Apps-to-Windows-8-232615.shtml
There is a rumour of some internal HP testing of Win8 on Thinkpad
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/10/24/hp-testing-windows-8-on-touchpads/
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