You Can Now Run Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi 3

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-10-arm-raspberry-pi-3-installer,38604.html

by cwt137 • 7 years ago

120 99 7 years ago

tomshardware.com

airstrike2• 7 years ago

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

cevn• 7 years ago

Not gonna lie I bust out laughing when I clicked comments and saw this first.

tombert• 7 years ago

I literally LOL'd upon reading this.

While I personally hate using Windows, I have been trying to get family members to update their machines from Windows Vista, and they won't because "new machines are too expensive and their computer works fine", and despite my best efforts, I cannot get said family members to let me install a Linux on there.

A Raspberry Pi is cheap enough that I might be able to swing them to using something a bit more modern.

EDIT: Not 100% sure why I'm being downvoted for this. Clearly I didn't realize how slow Windows would be.

vb6lives2• 7 years ago

It's going to be slow, even for basic tasks

Piskvorrr2• 7 years ago

And they will hate it with a heat of a thousand suns...it's slow enough without bloat. Not a desktop computer except for the truly patient or desperate. (Excellent for many tasks, but local interactive desktop not one of them - a netbook by any other name)

jandrese2• 7 years ago

I've had decent success using a Pi Model 3b as a Linux desktop, but with the knowledge that I'm not going to open a dozen tabs on the thing or try to run Wireshark on a 2GB capture.

The original Pi was just a little too underpowered to use as a desktop. You could get Chromium to start, but it would be swapping almost instantly and slow to an absolute crawl. The Model 3 has just enough oomph to do basic web browsing or run Libreoffice. It can open Facebook, although you probably don't want Libreoffice open at the same time if you do.

I've found Windows 10 to be slow on more capable machines (older low end laptops mostly), especially ones with spinning hard drives, so I'm somewhat dubious about using it on a Raspberry Pi.

hateful• 7 years ago

I came here to post this, but was happy it was already here.

lloeki• 7 years ago

"I've made a robot that screams!"

http://gunshowcomic.com/513

sixothree2• 7 years ago

SBCs do not end with just the Raspberry Pi. Many are much more powerful and have greater potential. They can include NVME M.2 and more RAM. Etc Etc.

They should. Plain and simple.

chewyland• 7 years ago

It would be incredible to be able to run Windows on ARM, especially the Pi.

Wasn't Eben hinting at something last week?

mermella• 7 years ago

I mean I have been trying to do this for a while so I can put all my service tools on it and connect them to gas dispensers I service

frabert2• 7 years ago

Are the GPIO pins accessible via APIs too?

eberkund• 7 years ago

Yes. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/learn-abou...

You could actually run Windows on Raspberry Pi 3 for a while now, I think it just was just a beta image or something. I'm not entirely sure, but I know I was able to install Windows IoT core on my Pi 3B.

snailmailman• 7 years ago

IoT core is different than full windows. It’s almost like the “lite” version of embedded windows. It has no desktop or start menu, for instance.

From what I understand, now you can run full windows. Although I’m curious how well it runs

ocdtrekkie• 7 years ago

My understanding is the GPIO APIs are unique to Windows 10 IoT Core, and aren't available on full Windows 10 editions.

0xcoffee• 7 years ago

They are .net Core API's and work under Linux and Windows: https://github.com/dotnet/iot/

exitcode00• 7 years ago

Wow, I checked but apparently the Pi 3 DOES meet the Windows 10 system requirements just barely. I wonder how fast the UI and Cortana run...

Win 10 Specs: Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC. RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit. Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS. Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver. Display: 800x600

Ras Pi 3: CPU: 4× ARM Cortex-A53, 1.2GHz. GPU: Broadcom VideoCore IV. RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 (900 MHz) Networking: 10/100 Ethernet, 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless. Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1 Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy. Storage: microSD.

babyslothzoo2• 7 years ago

I wondered the same thing, I would expect performance to be not great

criddell• 7 years ago

I wonder if the server version would work better since it can be run without a GUI.

mayniac• 7 years ago

I couldn't think of anything more horrible than running Windows without a GUI. Why not use Linux at that point?

extra88• 7 years ago

Windows Server doesn't support ARM, neither does Windows IoT Enterprise. The Nano Server install is strictly for virtualized use.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/...

WorldMaker3• 7 years ago

Windows 10 IoT Core has been an option for Raspberry Pi for a while. It's a mostly headless (just the bare amount of UWP GUI support, no Win32), desktop-less SKU intended for embedded installs.

catdog• 7 years ago

Ras Pi 3: CPU: 4× ARM Cortex-A53, 1.2GHz. GPU: Broadcom VideoCore IV. RAM: 1GB LPDDR2 (900 MHz) Networking: 10/100 Ethernet, 2.4GHz 802.11n wireless. Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1 Classic, Bluetooth Low Energy. Storage: microSD.

That's Model B, the Model B+ specs are a little bit better. But still only 1GB of RAM which I suspect to be the biggest bottleneck here. Storage also maybe but the Pi can boot from USB nowadays which might bring it to a good enough level.

jandrese2• 7 years ago

My first thought is that you might be able to boot Win10 with 1GB of RAM, but there won't be much of anything left for your applications. Swapping is on the slow CPU hungry SD card too. It's not going to be fun.

agumonkey• 7 years ago

broadcom wrote directx drivers ??

pexaizix2• 7 years ago

1 GHz on x86 != 1 GHz on ARM

Synaesthesia• 7 years ago

The IPC and architecture is obviously very important.

matthewaveryusa• 7 years ago

Interesting -- can you elaborate a bit more?

Narishma• 7 years ago

Even 1Ghz on one x86 != 1Ghz on a different x86 CPU.

Dylan16807• 7 years ago

If it allows Atoms, then most arm processors should be acceptable.

mises• 7 years ago

I wonder if this could be done with LTSB? It's definitely better-suited to applications such as rpi (embedded etc.).

Crosseye_Jack2• 7 years ago

Did they ever fix the SD Card issue? IoT-Core has been possible on the RPi3 for a while but none of my micro SD cards would boot the image but would happily run every other OS for the RPi I never bothered playing with it.

Topgamer7• 7 years ago

This is different than the IOT version. It's just Windows on ARM.

sebazzz2• 7 years ago

Windows IoT has specific storage requirements if I recall correctly. This is regarding SD card speed.

Crosseye_Jack2• 7 years ago

Sorry Only just saw this, I tried with a number of Class 10 cards (Adafruit sell a Window IoT kit which includes a Class 10 card) From a couple of manufactures. All of them would take the image just not boot the image. I was never too bother to check if their was any error messages thrown out over serial. It was just a pasing interest and I couldn't be arsed enough to get another SD card on MS's tested list to try again.

babyslothzoo2• 7 years ago

Personally I think the Github page is more informative than the very brief article

https://github.com/WoA-project/WoA-Installer/blob/master/Doc...

muterad_murilax• 7 years ago

Well, at least you'll have a Windows machine that isn't vulnerable to Meltdown or Spectre.

trumped3• 7 years ago

But can it run x86 software?

colejohnson663• 7 years ago

Yes. Through a VM like qemu or a tool like ExaGear

amelius• 7 years ago

I could use one to test my websites on IE ;)

smcl• 7 years ago

I know you’re kidding, but Microsoft provide VMs you can use to do this: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/v...

zaroth• 7 years ago

Wouldn't the license cost more than the hardware?

The site where they are sourcing the Windows ISO from seems sketchy, but apparently is legit...? [1] [2]

I guess the site is just an index of Microsoft hosted ISOs, so they are just providing a UI to generate the correct link, and you can check the link is actually going to Microsoft servers before downloading.

[1] https://uup.rg-adguard.net/

[2] https://www.ghacks.net/2017/03/13/adguard-website-download-w...

MagicPropmaker• 7 years ago

Wouldn't the license cost more than the hardware?

That's an odd argument. Software has to cost less than the hardware that runs it? When you can get computers for $35 or less, that doesn't leave much of a margin.

michaelmrose4• 7 years ago

The user ought to be interested in a term Microsoft has loved in the past. Total cost of ownership. If a user is looking at paying $35 for hardware + $119 for software and doesn't have a desire to pay for real support, as opposed to the imaginary support you get as an oem pc buyer, and we aren't interested in calculating the cost of power and net connectivity etc then the TCO is $154.

For $154 you can get a lot more computer with linux. The implication is that for cheap hardware only very cheap software is competitive because people willing to pay that much money would be better spending it on a better computer.

The unit cost of duplicating software is so close to zero that it might as well be zero and people are willing to give away great software so selling it becomes a challenge.

bdcravens• 7 years ago

SQL Server Enterprise costs about $7000 per core, and Adobe Creative Suite (pre-subscription model) was $2600, both oft run on computers that cost less. And those aren't even that expensive overall.

withinrafael• 7 years ago

It's effectively emulating a Windows Update client to retrieve all the update bits. Then there's some hoop jumps to bake an ISO.

It's also important to point out Insider builds are free for use, with some restrictions, providing a cheap alternative. [1]

[1] https://insider.windows.com/en-us/program-agreement/

Fredej• 7 years ago

I believe Win10 license price scales roughly with processor power, so it might be fine.

WorldMaker3• 7 years ago

Also, screen size. Since ~2014 Microsoft has stated that Windows 10 is free to OEMs selling devices intended for screens smaller than 9 inches.

Which gets to the complicated part of the question in that this is the licensing for OEMs. Running Windows 10 on an RPi as a "consumer" that isn't an OEM (and isn't building/reselling devices) is an interesting question.

Though as a consumer, Windows 10 is also weirdly "shareware" these days in that it's not entirely that mean in what features it disables (versus say XP almost not working at all) when not activated and will happily explain in the Microsoft Store how much it costs to activate and let you buy it there. (Example: https://www.windowscentral.com/you-do-not-need-activate-wind...)

asdff• 7 years ago

Are there any reasons to register windows 10, besides being able to change your desktop background? AFAIK the "this copy of windows is not genuine" message is benign.

colejohnson663• 7 years ago

It allows access to certain features. I believe Hyper-V and a few others are locked behind a license door.

pexaizix2• 7 years ago

It is benign but a bit annoying because it overlays all windows.

You can just use a "rogue" KMS server to activate Windows with no risks for you. For example, as an admin: slmgr /skms kms.digiboy.ir

trumped3• 7 years ago

licenses are about 5$ on ebay

colejohnson663• 7 years ago

Those aren’t legitimate. Please don’t suggest that here

voltagex_2• 7 years ago

uupdump.ml is another site that does the same thing.

josteink• 7 years ago

This looks neat, but hardly official. Let’s hope it doesn’t suffer a takedown-notice.

I might give this a try one day when I have time.

runjake• 7 years ago

Caution: To do this you need to run a rat's nest of a batch file that runs a bunch of different code obtained from the web.

If you're going to try this, try on devices you don't care about. Or spend innumerable hours auditing code.

Pass -- for now.

ddalex• 7 years ago

This reminds me of an old joke: Q: Can you implement Communism in Switzerland? A: Yes, but it would be a shame.

Uehreka• 7 years ago

Linus Tech Tips had an interesting video[1] last year about a Zotac micro-PC which costs something like $180[2]. It got me thinking, if the included Windows license cost $100 (though I'm sure they get it cheaper as an OEM) then the device would fall into the Raspberry Pi's "a computer for less than $100" range. When dealing with tiny cheap hardware, the cost of Windows no longer fades into the background (like it does with a $1000-2000 workstation) and becomes the most expense part of the device. The "free-as-in-beer"dom of Linux really stands out in these kinds of situations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32g1ByDRzO0 [2] https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Fanless-Dual-Core-1-10GHz-ZBOX-...

voidwtf• 7 years ago

Microsoft was (nearly) giving away Windows 10 Home OEM licenses for SFF Intel Atom pcs for a short period of time. I cannot remember what this program was called to get a link for reference. Maybe someone else familiar with the program can throw in a link.

p1necone2• 7 years ago

I got perpetual free keys from university that I just keep moving to whatever PC's I'm using.

21• 7 years ago

Technically you are pirating.

buzzert• 7 years ago

Can anyone think of a good reason why you would want to run Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi? I'm not trying to start a Windows/Linux debate, I'm just wondering if the wealth of Windows software is largely unavailable on ARM anyway, why not just run Raspbian anyway?

aliswe• 7 years ago

Familiarity?

WorldMaker3• 7 years ago

For the joy of the hobby? Isn't that why most things get done on a Raspberry Pi?

Also, this is recent builds of Windows 10 on ARM that includes the x86 emulator to run a ton of traditional x86 Windows software.

(Not far from here is the rabbit hole of folks installing these same Windows 10 on ARM builds on Microsoft's Lumia 950 and 950 XL hardware. One such video I saw showed someone running Steam on it to grab and play Fallout 1.)

petecox2• 7 years ago

Testing? e.g. your main machine is Ubuntu|macos and you just want to fire up Windows 10 Edge.

That said, it seems unpowered for general usage. Perhaps MS might look at officially supporting sub-$US100 SBCs such as ROCKPro64.

sixothree2• 7 years ago

Because raspberry pi is just one of many single board computers; and they are getting more powerful by the day.

kup0• 7 years ago

Windows 10 is already quite slow on older or low-powered desktops (like AMD A4 series), I can't imagine trying to use it on an RPi

voltagex_2• 7 years ago

The image is from Microsoft's server, but the "core package", including drivers, EFI binaries and a copy of Balena's Etcher tool - where do they come from?

chadlavi• 7 years ago

is "it runs win10" gonna be the new "it runs doom"?

You Can Now Run Windows 10 on the Raspberry Pi 3

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