You will get the traditional desktop with Windows 8 on ARM – but you won’t be able to put third-party apps on it.
That’s because all the third-party apps devloped for ARM-based Windows 8 devices will be for the new Metro interface.
However, it doesn’t mean the death of desktop-style apps on WOA – what Microsoft calls Windows on ARM. You’ll still get familiar apps like Explorer, Internet Explorer and the Windows Live apps (which will no longer be called Windows Live) plus Office – but everything else will be Metro.
“All Metro-style apps will run on WOA just like you would expect,” Sinofsky confirmed to TechRadar in an interview with Mary Branscombe; “it’s the same experience”.
Those are apps written in HTML5, VB, C# and XAML – and in C++ if developers prefer. That’s the language most x86 Windows programs are written in, though you can’t just turn an existing x86 Windows app into a Metro app (which would be a bad idea for a lot of different reasons).
Windows 8 for ARM tablets will come out at the same time as Windows 8 for x86 PCs but while there will be a beta for the x86 version, there will be no such concession for the ARM version. Neither will you be able to port the ARM Windows 8 version to Android devices (or install Android/Linux on Windows 8 hardware) – it will only ship on device.
Microsoft also says that Windows 8 ARM tablets will have no vendor integration to slow them down, while all updates will come directly from Microsoft.
