Hacker investigating Windows 10 for ARM for the Lumia 950

The project to run Windows 8 RT on the Lumia 640 XL has been progressing really well, but in many ways that is simply replacing one dead operating system with another.

The Holy Grail is running Windows 10 for ARM on a Windows 10 Mobile handset, and according to one of the lead hackers for Windows RT project Ben Imbushuo, it would be very hard but may be possible.

Possible yet hell difficulty, I am doing some early research on that

— Sunshine Biscuit at scale ? (@imbushuo) February 18, 2018

When asked if it would be possible to run Windows 10 for ARM on the Lumia 950 XL he said it would be possible, and confirmed that he was doing research on the issue.

PE image is publicly available but not meaningful. Bootstrapping a normal Windows 10 ARM (not PE) means bootstrapping own AArch64 firmware and drivers, which will be hell difficult.

— Sunshine Biscuit at scale ? (@imbushuo) February 18, 2018

He noted booting Windows 10 for ARM would mean writing your own AArch64 firmware and drivers, something which is very daunting, but which Ben appears to be doing to a (much smaller) degree for power management for Windows RT already.

While such a project would be very interesting and breath new life into older Windows Phones, Microsoft is, of course, rumoured to be working on the mythical Surface Phone, which is meant to offer Windows 10 on ARM in a pocketable form factor in any case, and it could be a race to see who will be first to reach their own difficult goal.

Via WindowsLatest