microsoft

ARM limitations in Windows 10.

 Modern hardware will work well.

Microsoft launched Windows 10 PC with ARM engine with "all day" battery life in December. While HP, Asus and Lenovo devices are not yet on sale, we are still waiting to hear more about Windows 10 limitations for these new PCs.

Microsoft released a complete list of limitations last week, discovered first by Thurrott which details what to expect from Windows 10 on ARM.

This list must have been published by accident, as the software giant removed it over the weekend, so only the following are available cached copies of the information.

• Only ARM64 controllers are supported . Windows 10 on ARM can run x86 applications, but cannot use x86 drivers. That should not be a problem for most hardware, but if you have some older peripherals, driver support will likely not be available. Windows 10 driver support on ARM will be more limited and similar to what Windows 10 S provides.
• x64 applications are not supported . This is something we have known, but Windows 10 on ARM does not support x64 application emulation. However, Microsoft plans to support these in the future at some point.
• Certain games and applications do not work . Microsoft says that games and applications that use a version of OpenGL later than 1.1 or that require hardware-accelerated OpenGL will not run on Windows 10 on ARM. Games that use anti-cheat technologies will also not run on Windows 10 on ARM.
• Applications that customize the Windows experience may not work properly. . Applications such as assistive technologies or input method editors will not work correctly on Windows 10 on ARM. In addition, applications that include shell extensions (icons and right-click menus in File Explorer) such as Dropbox may fail. These applications will need to be compiled natively for ARM.

• Applications that assume that all ARM-based devices are running a mobile version of Windows may not work correctly. . Some applications that have been coded for Windows Phone will not work correctly and may appear in the wrong orientation or have user interface design issues. However, this will not be a large number of applications.
• Windows hypervisor platform is not ARM compatible . You will not be able to run virtual machines using Hyper-V with Windows 10 on ARM.

It seems that for most Windows users, Windows 10 on ARM will support common applications and scenarios.

Microsoft's emulation work allows you to download most 32-bit exe files from the web and install them on ARM-based laptops.

Clearly there are some limitations, described above, but most applications should run.

We are still waiting to test a Windows 10 laptop with ARM to see if battery life is what was promised, and if desktop application performance is reasonable enough.