Compiling for ARM Windows

Question

Microsoft have released a full version of Windows 10 for ARM Architecture, to run on Snapdragon processors.

It includes an emulation layer to run x86 binaries out of the box. However, I expect this emulation to decrease performance when compared to running software on the architecture it was compiled for.

Therefore, I wonder if it would be a good idea for users to compile software themselves for ARM, and run it directly without needing emulation. The goal of this would be to bypass the emulation layer, thus increasing performance.

This would be software many people use regularly and have the source code for, such as Chromium, Firefox, Libre Office, GIMP, Audacity, Open Shot, VLC Player, etc.

Is this doable? Will Windows 10 for ARM let one install ARM compiled binaries?

How can one go about compiling Windows software for ARM?

Answer 1

Install the Windows 10 SDK and WDK (at least Build 16299) to get the ARM Compiler for Desktop Applications.

Open the Project configuration and create ARM(64) configuration:

If you try to compile it you would get an error that ARM64 is not supported for Desktop:

To fix this, unload the project and open it in editor and add the line <WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support>true</WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support> to the debug and release entry for ARM64:

  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|ARM64'" Label="Configuration">
    <ConfigurationType>Application</ConfigurationType>
    <UseDebugLibraries>true</UseDebugLibraries>
    <PlatformToolset>v141</PlatformToolset>
    <CharacterSet>Unicode</CharacterSet>
    <WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support>true</WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|ARM64'" Label="Configuration">
    <ConfigurationType>Application</ConfigurationType>
    <UseDebugLibraries>false</UseDebugLibraries>
    <PlatformToolset>v141</PlatformToolset>
    <WholeProgramOptimization>true</WholeProgramOptimization>
    <CharacterSet>Unicode</CharacterSet>
    <WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support>true</WindowsSDKDesktopARM64Support>
  </PropertyGroup>

and WindowsSDKDesktopARMSupport for 32Bit ARM.

Save changes, load the project again and now compilation works fine: