If this news is right

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-21/microsoft-is-said-to-announce-version-of-windows-for-arm-chips-at-ces-show.html There will be ARM Win32 in January. Looking at how many platforms fpc supports currently, there should be no big deal to implement this, right? Or do I miss something and there are hidden challenges?

Max Vlasov

What the?! O.o

Ok... even if they would indeed be doing that, FPC has all needed things in place basically. With WinCE we have the necessary ARM backend support and the normal Win32 API might work without much changes if Microsoft keeps the APIs compatible (which they should do if they want ANY popular software running at least by recompiling).

We will see how that evolves.

Regards,
Sven

I was surprised also. If it's Windows CE with more marketing effort, I think it will be the end of surprise. If it's desktop Win32 with slogan "you only need to recompile", it's an interesting story. I doubt Embarcadero will be ready fast enough unless they're already working under nda. But the latter is still possible since for MS encouraging everybody and not having skype ready to run on the new platform will look a little bit strange. But it's just my speculation

Max

No. Maybe MS uses different calling conventions or a different FPU implementation but even those are no big show stoppers.

Hi,

It was long time ago this post was sent.
A platform appeared closed by design
But since RT platform was jailbroken (
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2092158), I'm curious whether compiling into ARM Exe would work out of the box or will require some change on the compiler side?

Thanks

Max

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2092158), I'm curious whether compiling into ARM Exe would work out of the box or will require some change on the compiler side?

Disclaimer: Microsoft had responded that they don't guarantee that the jailbreak will continue to work in future builds (and they congratulated the developer that discovered the hack ^^)

That said it mostly depends on how much Microsoft changed their existing ARM compiler. If the changes are minimal for the purpose of user space applications then it should be rather easy to adjust the Win32 target for this. The biggest problem might be unaligned accesses in the Win32 RTL code, but AFAIK newer ARMs can handle these...

If you own a Windows RT device and are willing to jailbreak it, I could try to hack arm-win32 support together for you to test, but finegrained bug fixing (if the port should indeed work) needs to be done by someone owning the device.

Regards,
Sven

Thanks for the info, Sven. I will probably have a chance to get a device and jailbreak it, although not right now. If someone on the list does this before me, I'll be glad. I did not find any prior discussion about this topic, seems like it's not that hot to be discussed and everything.

Max

Hi,

Well windows has only about 1.5% of the tablet market, and its doubtful if that will grow - plus, as mentioned, it's closed by design. Then again, Apple's app store is restricted, and fpc supports that.

Thank you,
Noah Silva
2013/03/27 4:15 "Max Vlasov" :

This is not about Windows apps. Support for WinRT (aka Metro) would be a completely different topic. This is about running normal desktop applications compied for arm-win32 on a Windows RT tablet and those won't be found in the Windows app store, because you need to jailbreak the Windows RT device to be able to run unsigned desktop applications.

Regards,
Sven

Sven Barth wrote

you need to jailbreak the Windows RT device to be able to run unsigned desktop applications.

Never buy such a system !

I am not even sure if this is legal in Europe.... I.e. you are the owner of the hardware.

-Michael

In our previous episode, Sven Barth said:

Does Metro btw make a difference between the visual, language and system libraries? (like GDI/MSVCRT/win32 in Win32/64)

I've not looked at this in detail, but AFAIK you only have certain libraries and functions available and it will be checked by the Windows store and the OS that you don't load anything else that you shouldn't load... (you don't even have full access to the filesystem :( ). That's why a complete new OS port would be necessary to support WinRT...

Regards,
Sven

Sven Barth wrote

That's why a complete new OS port would be necessary to support WinRT...

A new OS would be more appropriate :-P .

-Michael

In our previous episode, Sven Barth said:

That's what I heard too, and in addition that most functionality is exposed as (COM) interfaces. But I haven't seen more detail. I hoped for an article in the C'T about it, but either I missed it, or there hasn't been.

Michael Schnell wrote

On 03/27/2013 10:00 AM, Sven Barth wrote: > That's why a complete new OS port would be necessary to support WinRT... > A new OS would be more appropriate :-P .

I'm not a fan of Windows 8 either, but if I see the possiblity to run FPC apps there, I'll take it. (Seeing that this is also something that Delphi can't do :P )

Regards,
Sven

Some of the low level API functions are available (but only selected ones) and then there are the COM APIs. Seeing that our support for COM has matured in 2.6 a WinRT port should be doable, but one would need (a) time and (b) a Windows 8 system. I don't have either (the latter mostly, because my university has not yet managed to provide free versions... -.-).

Regards,
Sven

Sven Barth wrote

I'm not a fan of Windows 8 either, ...

Is Win 8 on normal PCs crippled in a similar manner or is only the ARM version affected ?

-Michael

Only the ARM version. Though I'd not want to use the PC version either :P

Regards,
Sven

Sven Barth wrote

Only the ARM version. Though I'd not want to use the PC version either :P

I'm planning a (kind of) embedded device that need high performance (quad core, 64 Bit, 4 Gig RAM, SSD).

I need to use Windows, because of the 3rd party software I need to install.

I was told for this Win 8 would offer a better infrastructure than Win 7.

In fact I was told that the abysmal Desktop can be deactivated in Win 8.

What do you think ?

Thanks.
-Michael

(reply-to set to fpc-other since this is getting off-topic)

In our previous episode, Michael Schnell said:

As windows 6.2, Win8 is a win6 (vista) point release. The main differences are just like Vista->Win7, some minor performance (mainly startup) and startup updates (USB3 in preboot env), some new SMB/NTFS options etc. And performance mainly in the startup.
As with any new release, the drivers.cab is updated, so most current common HW is detected out of the box.

There are some downsides too, though they mostly are related to the defaults than real issues. (the quick startup is default, but not compatible with many industrial drivers, many shutdown options are hidden by default etc etc )

And of course, the whole startmenu episode is a bit sad, but IMHO a minor footnote just like Vista's gadgets (that have mysteriously disappeared in the next version too). And I hope that electronic delivery will cut out the middle man and thus some of the price in the long run, so the whole shop idea is not that bad, if it isn't forced on you too much. (it is only for MS services like messenger, MS based mail and Skype (I only use skype), and you have to dig out the desktop games from out of the store). Only time will tell.

But I never used the startmenu much in the first place, and I consider it an anti RSI measure (if you miss the startmenu in the default location, you probably use the mouse too much :-)

Yes, it is still not an improvement overall, but it shouldn't exaggerated. IMHO critics are still a bit power-high over the Vista revolt, and gunning for an encore. The whole discussion only detracts from the real issues and differences.

In fact I was told that the abysmal Desktop can be deactivated in Win 8.

Not by standard means. There is a lot of 3rd party cruft out there of course, and even OEMs deliver some, but I wouldn't recommend it.

What do you think ?

Win8 vs Win7 is the least important bit of your future device choice.

I mildly biassed towards win8, but I mostly migrated because of attractive offers, not features. I would get a 64-bit edition though.

Thanks a lot for the answers to this very off-topic question. -Michael