Windows 10 on android device?

[snoopunit]

First of all, I want to apologize if this is the wrong section, It didn't seem to fit in much anywhere. Anyways, I'm interested to see if anyone has any viable information on getting an android device to either dual-boot with android/windows or possibly wipe the system clean and have windows run by itself. Are there specific hardware requirements? For instance, I know that Mac OSX runs only on specific intel hardware, and so it would make sense that Android OS is designed for specific hardware as well, but i've never heard of anyone having issues running windows on anything. I've been looking at these Chuwi 2-in-1 tablets, that appear to dual-boot android 4.4 and windows 10. The device I would be attempting to do this with would be an old Galaxy S4 that's sitting in a drawer collecting dust.

[AdamBGames]

ive seen linux work, not sure about windows

[Electronics Wizardy]

well getiing your hands on a copy of windows 10 arm is a pain, esp since its normally custom for the device.

 

basically no you can't

[Technomancer__]

phones cpus utilize the arm instruction set

and windows 10 comes with support for 32bit and 64bit so you cant

[mail929]

Windows does have a small collection of architectures that it can be installed on, but can't just be installed on anything. Android being a Linux based OS can be relatively easily modified to boot on non-traditional Android hardware but the problem for your idea is most Android devices do not provide the appropriate boot mediums that PCs do. Devices that have both are normally built like a PC and have Android modified to work on the hardware or use some kind of virtual machine. A Galaxy S 4 would have absolutely no way of installing Windows on it like any other device that comes with Android only. Your best bet is using a remote desktop app and connecting to a PC over RDP.

[GoodBytes]

So, most Android tablets and phones uses ARM based CPU. So to start you'll need to wait for Windows 10 ARM edition to come out (Unless you don't mind using Windows 10 Mobile, which is fine, but is not distributed to the public, only to OEMs) OR use Windows 10 for IoT, but you have no desktop environment, it can be sent a Universal App via Visual Studio, which you can set it as auto-start, but that is all.

 

Microsoft is working on Windows 10 for ARM, and Microsoft said that they are targeting devices with a Snapdragon 835 or faster (although it was shown to run with a 820 model). The high CPU model, is probably to ensure smooth multi-tasking and the ability to run x86 based (32 and 64-bit) Win32 programs, as it goes throw emulation/translation layer. This means you won't need to acquire ARM compiled programs, you can run any current Windows program. Example: Steam, Photoshop, games, Chrome, Firefox, iTunes, VLC, etc. Of course performance will depend on your ARM chip, and most ARM based chip don't fully support OpenGL, (and I don't know about DirectX, as only Windows has support for this) so expect many games to not even start.

 

I doubt the Windows 10 for ARM will be available to the public either, once it will be released, mostly because you don't have drivers, and many hardware makers on the mobile side of things tend to not make drivers... they give the docs to the company, say Samsung, for them to make their own (That is why you have many drivers updates on PC, but on Phones, firmware updates are limited in numbers in comparison). So it is a complicated.

 

Now, if your tablet or phone runs on Intel x86 CPU, then technically, nothing stops you form installing Windows and enjoy. Drivers might be an issue on some functionality (sucks if you lack drivers for the touch screen), but in the regard of getting Windows and running on it, it should work. Now, the problem is that phones and tablets, are usually locked down. So they need to be jail broken in such a way that any OS can be installed on it.

 

So all to say, it is not easy at all (including trying to get your hands on Windows 10 Mobile or ARM whenever it will be released), and a big game of luck if you have an an x86 CPU inside the device to start with.

[androiddeveloper]

This is coming from experience, but if an android device has a Intel processor, then it will run Windows just fine, as long as the cpu meets the requirements (i3 or above, but you can run win10 on the intel atom