It seems the Linux and Android Switch ports may eventually be getting some rather unexpected competition. Bingxing Wang, also known as imbushuo, has shown on his Twitter account some pictures of what looks like Windows 10 ARM running on his console. For those out of the loop, the full Windows 10 operating system has been officially ported to ARM some time ago initially thanks to a deal with Qualcomm and has since been able to run on a good number of ARM devices, including the popular SBC Raspberry Pi 3B/3B+. This version of Windows has been received with mixed feelings, primarily because most applications have been written to run on x86 in mind and they need an emulation layer to run on ARM, thus severely impacting pefrormance. Simply put: if you think this port will allow you to play the latest and greatest Windows games on your Switch, then that's not going to happen.

Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/imbushuo/status/1102111298077130752​

Switching the focus back to our console, the port seems in very early stages. Progress is being made rather quickly, as not even a day ago all one could see is an EFI shell, however the OS is not able to reach past the initial boot process due to memory-related issues. The port runs on bare metal and uses an EDK II implementation (TianoCore) for the Tegra X1 SoC, which borrows a lot of code from a similiar project (Lumia950XLPkg, an effort to bring a full Windows 10 ARM installation for Lumia 950/950 XL phones). For the curious or more skeptical readers, the developer is already known for similiar projects, primarily dealing with Lumia phones, and has already uploaded a very early version of his work on GitHub (you can find a link in the sources below).

What do you think? Will this project go far? Will it be useful? Are you interested in running other OSes on your Switch and, if so, will you consider using it over the other ports?

UPDATE: The Switch is now reportedly able to boot Windows 10 (with limited device support). Bingxing Wang has uploaded a video of the console getting to the installation dialog, which can be seen below.

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Source

 

[Kioku]

While this is cool. Windows ARM is utterly useless...

 

[MrBareBones]

I remember having this thought a few months back about this exact idea, and to see it being worked on is kinda surreal. So I really hope this gets fleshed out a lot more!

 

[TR_mahmutpek]

LMAO, just LMAO


(way to go devs)

 

[Rabbid4240]

Ok den

 

[The Real Jdbye]

While this is cool. Windows ARM is utterly useless...

Well, you can run .NET apps on ARM, so you can actually do quite a lot on Windows ARM, as long as they don't need any native libraries (or said native libraries are open source so you can recompile them)
It's not at all comparable to full blown PC Windows though. And the touchscreen experience on Windows is still not great, you really need a keyboard at minimum if you want to use it seriously. And obviously you can forget about running games, but it may be good for some things, you could probably run full fat Office on it, and use it for web browsing and video watching, but I think almost anything you can do on Windows ARM could be done better on Android which is more tailored to touchscreen devices.

 

[ry755]

Might not be very useful, but it would still be fun to mess around with!

 

[Shrike]

At least there are browsers with HTML5 and JavaScript support for ARM Windows... So.. yay?

 

[Idontknowwhattoputhere]

At least there are browsers with HTML5 and JavaScript support for ARM Windows... So.. yay?

I doubt spyware chrome or firefox would work on win10 arm

 

[Deleted-351540]

While this is cool. Windows ARM is utterly useless...

It's not utterly useless at all. It's way beyond.

I have ran Windows 10 on my Pi 3. It took well over 10 minutes to boot up to the desktop and a full five more minutes to become usable. It took exactly 3 minutes and 47 seconds to open the Edge browser. Yes, I timed it. Typing is a chore because of the lag between button presses and the time it took to display those presses on screen.

Yes, the Switch is more powerful than a Pi 3. But I don't expect a ton of performance gains from the Switch.

It's cool, yes. But useless doesn't describe how bad it'll run.

 

[Shrike]

I doubt spyware chrome or firefox would work on win10 arm

https://www.windowscentral.com/mozilla-releases-first-nightly-build-firefox-windows-10-arm

 

[Idontknowwhattoputhere]

https://www.windowscentral.com/mozilla-releases-first-nightly-build-firefox-windows-10-arm

Its not for the end user

 

[emmanu888]

Android would make more sense as an alt OS for the Switch over Windows.

You know since Android already has support for the X1 SoC

 

[Kubas_inko]

So we have horizon, linux (and laka), android and windows. Cool.

 

[Alkéryn]

Cool yeah maybe
but definitely useless ^

 

[Minox]

Its not for the end user

I highly doubt this early port of Windows 10 for the Switch is for the end user either.

 

[Kioku]

Well, you can run .NET apps on ARM, so you can actually do quite a lot on Windows ARM, as long as they don't need any native libraries (or said native libraries are open source so you can recompile them)
It's not at all comparable to full blown PC Windows though. And the touchscreen experience on Windows is still not great, you really need a keyboard at minimum if you want to use it seriously. And obviously you can forget about running games, but it may be good for some things, you could probably run full fat Office on it, and use it for web browsing and video watching, but I think almost anything you can do on Windows ARM could be done better on Android which is more tailored to touchscreen devices.

Office is the only positive out of this. Most ARM based Windows emulators aren't that great. So I can't see this benefiting anyone that isn't in it to say "cuz I can"

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

-snip-

If only it were. That'd be great. Give me one objective reason this will prove useful to any end user.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

It's not utterly useless at all. It's way beyond.

I have ran Windows 10 on my Pi 3. It took well over 10 minutes to boot up to the desktop and a full five more minutes to become usable. It took exactly 3 minutes and 47 seconds to open the Edge browser. Yes, I timed it. Typing is a chore because of the lag between button presses and the time it took to display those presses on screen.

Yes, the Switch is more powerful than a Pi 3. But I don't expect a ton of performance gains from the Switch.

It's cool, yes. But useless doesn't describe how bad it'll run.

I can see that happening. Of course if it becomes a properly optimized project, it would be fun to mess with. I'd rather see the Android project take off.

 

[the_randomizer]

It's not utterly useless at all. It's way beyond.

I have ran Windows 10 on my Pi 3. It took well over 10 minutes to boot up to the desktop and a full five more minutes to become usable. It took exactly 3 minutes and 47 seconds to open the Edge browser. Yes, I timed it. Typing is a chore because of the lag between button presses and the time it took to display those presses on screen.

Yes, the Switch is more powerful than a Pi 3. But I don't expect a ton of performance gains from the Switch.

It's cool, yes. But useless doesn't describe how bad it'll run.

People are so obsessed with Pi 3, the Atomic Pi is so much better, and would be better if it was more popular. Windows ARM just seems, wrong.

 

[BlueFox gui]

switch is for games son
i already have windows on PC
stop
please

 

[Deleted-351540]

People are so obsessed with Pi 3, the Atomic Pi is so much better, and would be better if it was more popular. Windows ARM just seems, wrong.

I like the Pi 3 because of the massive amount of support available to it. I also own (and like) a Rock64Pro 4Gb board, but support on that board is only slightly better than nil. Although, I must admit that the Atomic Pi is very appealing in that it runs an Intel Atom at almost 2Ghz. I'd buy one tonight if it had a version that had 4Gb RAM.