Rich Fiscus
15 Sep 2011 13:43
Clarifying statement he made earlier in the week, Microsoft Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky, told analysts programs written for older Windows versions won't be compatible with Windows 8 on ARM processors.
During Tuesday's keynote address at Microsoft's BUILD conference, Sinofsky mentioned that the applications being demoed would run on either the x86 or ARM architecture.
ARM processors are typically used for devices like phones and tablets where low power usage is more important than speed. Windows has been primarily (except early versions of Windows NT) been written for x86 chips.
At Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting yesterday, Sinofsky was asked how legacy applications would be able to run on ARM processors, to which he responded:
I don't think I said quite that. I think I said that if it runs on a Windows 7 PC, it'll run on Windows 8. So, all the Windows 7 PCs are x86 or 64-bit. We've been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won't run any x86 applications.