Database Info

Windows Blue apps on Windows RT?

I saw that you can install two Windows Blue apps, Calculate and Alarms, on Windows 8 Pro. I installed this on both my WIndows 8 machines, and attempted to install them on my Surface RT, which didn't work.
I followed these instructions: http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/43951-Port-WinBlue-Apps-Alarm-amp-Cal-to-Win8Pro
I used the Windows RT Jailbreak tool to run the chinese tool to sideload the applications, but it always gives me an error. Is there a reason for this, and is there a way around it?

This is normal,since these the WinBlue application only running on x86 platform.
WinBlue for ARM architecture now is didn't disclosure.

hks25258 said:
This is normal,since these the WinBlue application only running on x86 platform.
WinBlue for ARM architecture now is didn't disclosure.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, so it the leaked apps where only compiled for x86? I guess that makes sense, just didn't think it would matter since it's a Metro app.

even metro apps can have native code compiled only for 1 architecture or another. Its just rare, in theory making a metro app run on ARM instead of x86 should just be changing a few settings in visual studio so its hardly any effort to support ARM.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
even metro apps can have native code compiled only for 1 architecture or another. Its just rare, in theory making a metro app run on ARM instead of x86 should just be changing a few settings in visual studio so its hardly any effort to support ARM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it isn't that rare, just most devs will compile for both architectures. there are a few that are specifically flipping the flag though and doing x86 only.
My guess on Windows Blue is that the SDK has only been prepared for x86 internally at this point in time, and not something that should be read into any further about the future of windows rt or if blue will run on it like some people have already started to do. It would make sense that x86 is the only test bed at this point.

Its not as if it is properly released software yet.

BlueStacks App player

Hi everyone.
Could anybody compile BlueStacks App Player for Windows RT?
It would be great to use this app on our tablet with Win RT
I use on my laptop (win7) and wish o use on my Surface RT
Official site
Thanx a lot

It would be a great app to have, but seeing that it's not open-source there is about zero chance of it ever getting ported by the community.
Your best bet is to just hope that they (the actual makers of the app) decide to bring it over to RT, which is possible but unlikely.
Search next time; the devs here are up to their ears in requests for closed-source applications and are pretty fed up with it. Sorry.

They've actually already stated that it's coming...

Not explicitly. They hinted at it in a Help forum post, but never confirmed or denied it. And that was months ago.

jtg007 said:
Not explicitly. They hinted at it in a Help forum post, but never confirmed or denied it. And that was months ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually they had listed on their site that they were working on an ARM version.but not sure if they still are. Seems unlikely MS would allow it in the store due to direct competition with the windows store.

guitar1969 said:
Actually they had listed on their site that they were working on an ARM version.but not sure if they still are. Seems unlikely MS would allow it in the store due to direct competition with the windows store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MS doesn't have a whole lot of control of things outside the Store. They could side-load an app pretty easily.

The vast majority of RT devices aren't "jailbroken" for sideloading arbitrary ARM binaries. Also, remember that RT doesn't (currently) support OpenGL, which means any Android apps/games that use advanced graphics won't work unless BlueStacks write and include an openGL-via-DirectX compatibility layer.

GoodDayToDie said:
The vast majority of RT devices aren't "jailbroken" for sideloading arbitrary ARM binaries. Also, remember that RT doesn't (currently) support OpenGL, which means any Android apps/games that use advanced graphics won't work unless BlueStacks write and include an openGL-via-DirectX compatibility layer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I meant side-loading a Metro app, which can be done by just about everybody.

Cant sideload metro apps without a developers certificate

Derp. Yes, of course sideloading is the obvious way to go about it. Getting the dev license is easy, and yeah BS would have to sign their app, but that's not exactly difficult and their cert doesn't have to be signed by anybody else; it just requires that the end user install the cert before the app if it doesn't already chain to a trusted authority. The appx installer script automates all of that, though.
That said, the OpenGL issue is still there. Don't count on 3D games, at a minimum, working.

Don't forget however, that all of this is pretty much irrelevant right now. The Surface lacks the power to run Bluestacks. On my 6-core 2.3 ghz 6 gigs of ram computer with a great graphics unit, Bluestacks is still relatively slow. Just imagine it on the quad-core 1.4 with 2 gigs of ram that the Surface has. Not to mention it's on ARM, which is considerably less powerful than x86 or x64.

C-Lang said:
Don't forget however, that all of this is pretty much irrelevant right now. The Surface lacks the power to run Bluestacks. On my 6-core 2.3 ghz 6 gigs of ram computer with a great graphics unit, Bluestacks is still relatively slow. Just imagine it on the quad-core 1.4 with 2 gigs of ram that the Surface has. Not to mention it's on ARM, which is considerably less powerful than x86 or x64.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think bluestacks is a multithreaded application in which case your 6 cores would be irrelevant and it would be purely down to your 2.3ghz clockspeed, which is not high at all. 6gb of RAM would also be irrelevant as no android app requires that much RAM so it simply wont be needed. GPU, not so sure what happens there, most of the apps I try running dont seem to enable my GPU at all so I am not sure if bluestacks is using software or hardware OpenGL, but then I havent tried any 3d games or anything. It runs ok on my 3.5ghz AMD athlon 2 but its not always as perfect as lets say a nexus 7 tablet running android natively.

I'm admittedly not 100% sure on how BlueStacks works (is it a native x86 DalvikVM, or is it emulating a full ARM system?), but it should be, at least in theory, possible to get it to run as naively as it does on Android by just porting the DalvikVM to Windows RT. That should result in speeds at least similar to a lower end Android tablet (Windows is bigger and has more cruft than the linux kernel that's running the DVM). With some sort of reverse WINE scenario it should also be possible to get a degree of binary compatibility for native libraries/addons.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
I dont think bluestacks is a multithreaded application in which case your 6 cores would be irrelevant and it would be purely down to your 2.3ghz clockspeed, which is not high at all. 6gb of RAM would also be irrelevant as no android app requires that much RAM so it simply wont be needed. GPU, not so sure what happens there, most of the apps I try running dont seem to enable my GPU at all so I am not sure if bluestacks is using software or hardware OpenGL, but then I havent tried any 3d games or anything. It runs ok on my 3.5ghz AMD athlon 2 but its not always as perfect as lets say a nexus 7 tablet running android natively.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sort of, yes. But still, that means the Surface would be way less powerful. Also, my RAM is EATEN by Bluestacks because it's not apps that are the problem to run, it's Android. You're basically loading an entire virtual machine onto your RAM to run, in a program shell, then running Android apps on top of that. So the power of the device does matter... however:
netham45 said:
I'm admittedly not 100% sure on how BlueStacks works (is it a native x86 DalvikVM, or is it emulating a full ARM system?), but it should be, at least in theory, possible to get it to run as naively as it does on Android by just porting the DalvikVM to Windows RT. That should result in speeds at least similar to a lower end Android tablet (Windows is bigger and has more cruft than the linux kernel that's running the DVM). With some sort of reverse WINE scenario it should also be possible to get a degree of binary compatibility for native libraries/addons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bluestacks would have to run a full emulation of ARM in order to run all apps, right? Because when you install native x86 Android, it runs very few apps from the store, because they aren't compiled for ARM.
Netham45 could be right though that we could kind of make Android run natively, though I'm highly dubious about it happening through Bluestacks. Bluestacks most likely won't make an ARM port (especially cause I doubt Microsoft would allow it in the store) and if we did have access to source code, it's still built around running on Intel processors, and would probably have to go through all sorts of unnatural emulation... So making a totally separate Android program from scratch (which would require inordinate amounts of work) would probably be the best bet.

No. I think bluestacks is actually "just" a port of the dalvik VM to run on windows.
Android apps are not compiled for a specific CPU type. They are compiled for the dalvik virtual machine which is in a way similar to the java virtual machine, in fact a dalvik applications source code is java source code hense why many people say android apps are java, in reality the dalvik VM is very different from the java VM and the 2 are not compatible.
The vast majority of apps do actually work on x86 just fine.
The main problem is that google restricts apps based on your device and often it doesn't recognise x86 devices so doesn't show results, the default app manifest files don't actually restrict platform but many devs set them to arm for some reason. With various tools to spoof what device you appear as you can still gain access to thses other apps.
The problem apps are those that use the NDK (a small minority). NDK apps do have native code, but not just for ARM. The NDK default settings are to generate binaries for ARMv7, but it can be set to x86, ARMv6, MIPS or to compile multiple binaries for a mixture of the above (causes its own issue as it includes the binaries for all platforms in one APK which loads the relevant binary at runtime, good for compatibility as one APK covers all devices but makes the final APK massive). x86 devices of course cannot run ARM compiled apps which does include a few big name apps.
I don't know if bluestacks has left it as pure dalvik VM on x86 or if it does include an ARM emulator for the NDK but it certainly isn't just running an ARM emulator and tyen android atop of it.
I don't experience the ram eating effects you mention either.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
No. I think bluestacks is actually "just" a port of the dalvik VM to run on windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly what my understanding was as well, although what I'm about to say somewhat contradicts that.
Interestingly, http://www.bluestacks.com/technology.html says that BlueStacks is "fully configurable" and that it "supports" Windows on ARM as well as x86 Chrome, even though neither of those are actually available today. So, not sure if that page is before or ahead of its time.
"BlueStacks employs a lightweight, optimized, soft hypervisor with deep enhancements to support "embedded virtualization". End consumers can enjoy the full Android environment through BlueStacks, or just install Android app icons directly on the Windows desktop."
What the page basically says is that the core virtualization that BS uses is very easily configurable to different combinations or permutations of OSs; that the technology can just as easily run Windows on Android or Android on Chrome as it can Android on Windows, which is the only current release. It also implies that BS can do BOTH a mere dalvik vm (just install apps to the Desktop) as well as a complete system emulation (full Android experience).
There may be hope for RT yet.

As far as I remember, Bluestacks is using QEMU as there base platform. So it's probably still running ARM code in emulator.
I am looking at if we can port the Dalvik VM over to Windows RT. Anybody want to join the explorations?
So far I can see the Dalvik VM has lots of generated ARM assembly code and have huge dependencies on linux.
Porting would need quite a bit of effort.
Developers from Windroy has done it for the Windows X86 platform. If they can do it for Windows RT, it'll be much easier.

Windows rt python

Hello
I've been reading about jailbreak for windows rt 8.1 because I'm interested on this python for windows rt https://sellfy.com/p/vj3U/ but I read there was some developments but my question is if there is jailbreak for 8.1 rt?
And someone know if that python app would work on rt 8.0 because it dont mession the version of RT and know if this python app is like those we have on x86.
Thank you

No. It will be major news when there is.

scjoao said:
Hello
I've been reading about jailbreak for windows rt 8.1 because I'm interested on this python for windows rt https://sellfy.com/p/vj3U/ but I read there was some developments but my question is if there is jailbreak for 8.1 rt?
And someone know if that python app would work on rt 8.0 because it dont mession the version of RT and know if this python app is like those we have on x86.
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can only run desktop software on 8.0, there is no 8.1 jailbreak released yet.
It is python 2.7.3 as on x86, but its foreign function interface is broken so certain libraries do not work.

SixSixSevenSeven said:
You can only run desktop software on 8.0, there is no 8.1 jailbreak released yet.
It is python 2.7.3 as on x86, but its foreign function interface is broken so certain libraries do not work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
so I would have to downgrade for 8.0 and some functions migth not work fine... so I think I will stay on 8.1 and using teaviewer xD
Thank you very much

Somebody has an experimental port of the FFI that should fix the issues, but I haven't had time to test it yet. But yes, until we get the jailbreak working, you would need to downgrade.

GoodDayToDie said:
Somebody has an experimental port of the FFI that should fix the issues, but I haven't had time to test it yet. But yes, until we get the jailbreak working, you would need to downgrade.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent news. If I could run Mercurial on my RT I would be one happy developer. I like fossil well enough, but just about everything that I've done for the past five years is on bitbucket in Hg repos.
Is this port available somewhere?

The message I received:
e13000 said:
Dear GoodDayToDie,
I included the libFFI port i made a while ago (if this doesn't work, please let me know because I have made 2 3 different port).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByNfJPIJQw6hRnlPMHM3b1FFUFU/edit?usp=sharing
Cheer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Hi, _ctypes.pyd worked flawlessly. However, Python 2.7.3 test failed on asyncore (It passed all other tests). It could be due to my openssl port.
Edited:
LibFFI is to call a C/Java function at real-time. It allocates a memory to create a wrapper. This wrapper prepares the stack/registers according to ABI, then it calls the function and get back the results if any.
RT port is a just a source conversion from GAS's asm to ARMASM's asm. Since PC LSB bit is set under THUMB mode, I modified the wrapper's memory allocator so that it will increase address returned by VirtualAlloc by 1 (so that the wrapper can be called in THUMB.
(I ported python and posted it here under my coworker's account).

Hey, I did tried the python 27 in test mode and did signed it than, to work in Standard mode, works fine.
Is there the PIP tool ported as well ?

WinCE ARM apps and Surface RT (jailbroken)

I have an app (ECUTalk) that can run on both Windows x86 and ARM (WinCE). I would think that this would be easy to port over to the Windows RT device. Anyone think this would be possible?

Globalrebel said:
I have an app (ECUTalk) that can run on both Windows x86 and ARM (WinCE). I would think that this would be easy to port over to the Windows RT device. Anyone think this would be possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Title is misleading.
There is a thread for port request.
It uses .net 1.x which is not exist on Windows RT, thus it can not run as-is (assuming it's a pure .net program).
No source code, no port.

WinCE and Windows are two totally different beasts. You won't ever be able to just run a WinCE app on Windows. It'll require a fair deal of reworking.

It might be possible to run ARM WinCE apps if someone ports the Shared Source Device Emulator 1.0 Microsoft has made. Though, I doubt it would be easy as that thing probably makes heavy use of x86 ASM.
You could likely use QEMU to run an x86 build of WinCE in emulation.
Another possible option would be to use the MESS emulator package. There is at least one driver that can boot Windows CE on an emulated ARM board.

Is there anyone knows how to do jailbreak and use desktop apps on windows RT 8.1?

Is there anyone knows how to do jailbreak and use desktop apps on windows RT 8.1?

No. Windows desktop applications are compiled for x86 architecture. Windows RT runs on ARM.

@jeddx21: There is not a jailbreak publicly available for Windows RT 8.1 yet.
Will there be? I've seen indication that progress has been made on that front, but it's been sparse lately. It's something that's been wanted for a while (do a search - you'll find all sorts of threads and comments about an RT 8.1 jailbreak), but it's not yet available.
@Banderburg: Desktop applications are simply Windows applications compiled for the desktop environment, not the Metro / Modern / whatever-Microsoft-is-calling-it-these-days environment. They can and do exist for Windows RT - a primary example of this is Microsoft Office; others include all of the applications that are available to run under a jailbroken RT 8.0 system, such as those in this thread.

So what should i do? should i downgrade it from 8.1 to 8 so i can use jailbreak?
Hey

That depends on your device. If it's a device that shipped with RT 8.0 when released (the original Surface RT and the Asus VivoTab RT, for example), the instructions are available elsewhere in the forum (use the search function).
If it was one that came only with RT 8.1, then there really isn't much that can be done to downgrade your device - missing drivers, signatures that are unrecognized by the device firmware, etc.

irony_delerium said:
@Banderburg: Desktop applications are simply Windows applications compiled for the desktop environment, not the Metro / Modern / whatever-Microsoft-is-calling-it-these-days environment. They can and do exist for Windows RT - a primary example of this is Microsoft Office; others include all of the applications that are available to run under a jailbroken RT 8.0 system, such as those in this thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[MENTION]@irony_delerium[/MENTION] I'm sorry - what? Desktop applications aren't compiled for an "environment". They're compiled for a specific CPU architecture and in this case, applications that run on desktop computers are compiled for x86 CPUs. Applications that run on RT are compiled for ARM CPUs.
You can't jail break a device running on ARM and expect it to run x86 applications. You would need to recompile the application and target it at the ARM CPU.
So again, to the OP's question, NO there will never be a jailbreak that allows you to run a desktop application on an ARM cpu. Period.
IF you re-compile an application to run on ARM, and IF you've modified your Surface RT to run applications that aren't digitally signed by Microsoft, then yes in that case you can run the "desktop" application.

banderberg said:
[MENTION]@irony_delerium[/MENTION] I'm sorry - what? Desktop applications aren't compiled for an "environment". They're compiled for a specific CPU architecture and in this case, applications that run on desktop computers are compiled for x86 CPUs. Applications that run on RT are compiled for ARM CPUs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This doesn't change the fact that *desktop* applications exist for Windows running on ARM. Unless you mean to tell me that Audacity, SumatraPDF, or Notepad++ (for example) are not desktop applications, of course.
On Windows 8, applications are compiled both for an environment - Metro/Modern or Desktop - and a CPU architecture. Metro applications run in containers and have explicit blessing from Microsoft to run on both x86 based systems and ARM based systems. Desktop applications are locked down on ARM based systems, by default, to only those with a Microsoft signature. Applications built for either Desktop or Metro will not run in the other environment. Applications compiled for x86 will not run on ARM; applications compiled for ARM will not run on x86.
bandenberg said:
You can't jail break a device running on ARM and expect it to run x86 applications. You would need to recompile the application and target it at the ARM CPU.
So again, to the OP's question, NO there will never be a jailbreak that allows you to run a desktop application on an ARM cpu. Period.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is true. I never said anything about x86 applications. I said desktop - of which, Windows on ARM has a desktop and applications for that desktop.
There are applications built to run on that desktop - even provided by Microsoft, unless you consider the applications forming the Office suite to not be desktop applications. Therefore, desktop applications are available for Windows RT.
No, of course desktop applications targetting x86 or x64 will not run in that environment.

Well put, @irony_delirium. I would expand on that a little, though.
First, not even all desktop computers are x86/x64. Windows used to run on a number of other architectures, like Alpha and PowerPC, and there were desktops (workstations, really, but recognizably desktop computers) with those architectures. Apple used to build all its desktops (and laptops) with PowerPC chips, and before that they used CPUs from the Motorola 68000 family. None of these can execute x86 instructions, but they were all desktops. Of course, the code that ran on them had to be compiled for the relevant architectures, but usually it's not that hard to port software from one 32-bit instruction set to another, unless you wrote the code in Assembly or did similarly platform-specific stuff.
Second, architecture-independent software can run on any platform that supports the intermediate language. For example, Windows RT can run .NET 4.x software, including on the desktop, just fine (though if the binary isn't signed by Microsoft, either the OS will need to be jailbroken or the method of loading the application will need some other convoluted hack). Let me make this clear, though: these are the exact same binaries, produced by Visual Studio (or the command-line C# compiler, csc.exe, that ships with all recent versions of Windows including RT), that you can run on x86 desktops. There's even a .NET program which implements the Java runtime, so you can run Java-based apps on (jailbroken) RT.
Third, it's actually possible to run code written for one instruction set architecture on a CPU with a different architecture, if you have a translation/emulation layer and are willing to take the performance hit of going through it. There's a half-finished homebrew of such a layer for Win32/x86 code on Win32/ARM (RT), but nobody has been working on it for months. It'll run some software, though - Heroes of Might and Magic 3, a closed-source commercial x86 strategy game from the 90s was one of the first apps it was shown able to run, and some other programs work as well - and while it's not fast in an absolute sense it's good enough to run old games or reasonably lightweight current programs. Hopefully, work on it will resume once there's a new jailbreak out.