Can the ARM version of Windows 8 only run Metro (WinRt) style apps?

Question

See also: Is there any way to write a WinRt (Metro) app that will also work on Windows 7 and Vista?

I am trying to understand how to target both Windows 8 on Arm and Windows 7, given that Windows 7 cannot run WinRT apps. And as I understand it, apps can only be installed on ARM version of Windows 8 from the App Store.

So can Windows 8 on the Arm run none WinRT apps?

Answer 1

The definitive answer is out now. There will be a desktop, but you will not be able to install desktop apps. "WOA does not support running, emulating, or porting existing x86/64 desktop apps." All apps will come from the store and will have to abide by the Metro style app guidelines.

The only desktop apps appear to be Office (which seems to ship with the OS) and built-in apps like the control panel, Explorer, IE, etc. Everything else will be a new Metro-style app written against the Windows Runtime.

See this Building Windows 8 blog post for details.

Answer 2

"No legacy apps" is not the same as "no Desktop apps" though.

Nothing I've seen suggests that there won't be a regular Win32 with COM, IE, MSHTA, etc. on ARM along with an Explorer Desktop.

You may simply need to recompile C++ or .Net after some tweaking or "retargeting." Things like HTAs may even port with close to zero effort as long as they don't use any custom COM libraries. I'm surprised anyone ever expected any x86 code to run on ARM, even under some sort of WOW emulation. Microsoft has been pretty clear about that.

Whether it makes any sense to do much of this (desktop apps on ARM) is another matter, even if you can. The ARM-based devices are likely to be quite resource-constrained, which is the purpose in having them in the first place: cheap and portable.