Oliver Haslam·

Microsoft Has x64 Emulation Running On Windows 10 ARM PCs

Microsoft has announced a new preview build of Windows for ARM that includes support for x64 emulation.

The updated release is now available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel, allowing them to run X64 apps on ARM devices, like the Surface Pro X.

However, Microsoft still wants developers to write code that’s designed for ARM first, presumably because its emulation isn’t as performative as it could be.

When we first launched Windows 10 on ARM in late 2017, the long tail of apps customers needed were dominated by 32-bit-only x86 applications, so we focused our efforts on building an x86 emulator that could run the broad ecosystem of Windows apps seamlessly and transparently. Over time, the ecosystem has moved more toward 64-bit-only x64 apps and we’ve heard the feedback that customers would like to see those x64 apps running on ARM64. That’s why we are working on expanding the capability of our emulation to include x64 applications and sharing this first preview to gather feedback.

None of this means that you can now install Windows on your M1-powered Mac, though.

Licensing issues will still prevent you from installing Windows for ARM on your Mac. It does mean that anyone running something like the aforementioned Surface Pro X now has more options in terms of the apps they can install, though.

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