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I am a little confused. When I search the internet I see examples of Windows CE running on Raspberry Pi or Samsung ARM11. However, I cannot be sure if they hacked it somehow or CE officially runs on ARM devices.

If it does not, should I use Windows Embedded products to target arm processors?

And the last question is that How does Windows CE fare when compared to Windows Embedded 7 in terms of footprint?

Can anybody enlighten me please?

zgrkpnr89
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  • _"Does windows CE work on ARM processors?"_ [Yes](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee482755(v=winembedded.60).aspx). – Michael Jul 28 '15 at 09:08
  • CE has supported ARM for almost ever ([Wikipedia says version 2 in 1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_CE)) - I'd guess some of the more prominent examples might be the pocket PCs of the early 2000s (iPAQ, Jornada, Axim), mostly built around ARM-based XScale cores (and later evolving into things like the XDA). Note that CE is at heart an RTOS and fundamentally different from Windows 7. – Notlikethat Jul 28 '15 at 09:09

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Yes, Windows CE (lately renamed Windows Embedded Compact) runs on ARM. Up to version 6 it supported also SH4 and in Compact 7 MIPS. Latest version is named (confusingly) Windows Embedded Compact 2013 and Microsoft is committed to support it up to 2023. It's a different kernel (real-time) but provides some compatibility at the API level with desktop and server versions. The new Windows IoT Core version runs on Raspberry Pi 2 (ARMv7) and uses the same kernel of the PC version.

Valter Minute
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Microsoft used an ARM build of Windows CE for Windows Phone 7, 7.5, 7.8, before they jumped to running NT on their ARM phones. For sure it exists.

I can't figure out if you can actually get it though. They have "Windows Embedded Compact 7", but from the documentation, it sounds like it's only x86 and amd64. But maybe there's some way to get the ARM version... maybe an MSDN license or by being some kind of business partner with Microsoft?

On second thought, this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/en-us/windows-embedded-compact-7.aspx suggests that it does work for ARM.

Bonus: Apparently Windows 10 will run on the Raspberry Pi 2: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/windows-on-arm-lives-on-even-as-it-dies/ The only question is if they'll keep requiring every non-app .exe to be signed by Microsoft like they did with the surface RT, preventing normal win32 or .NET programs from being possible to develop for ARM on NT. If they don't give us that crazy restriction, this could be pretty neat.

VoidStar
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  • Um. there is an amateur question. Windows embedded compact and Windows CE are the same things? – zgrkpnr89 Jul 28 '15 at 09:21
  • @zgrkpnr89: I think they rebranded slightly when going from Windows Embedded CE 6.0 to Windows Embedded Compact 7. That's my take, anyway, they're the same. – VoidStar Jul 28 '15 at 09:24
  • Latest release of Windows CE (renamed Embedded Compact to further confuse the users) is Windows Embedded Compact 2013 and it does support ARM. On the Raspberry Pi you don't have "Windows 10" as you have it on your PC, it's the "IoT Core" version that supports UWP application and a subset of the win32 API. Porting existing Windows applications isn't straightforward. – Valter Minute Oct 02 '15 at 15:16
  • Well sure, but IoT is no less Windows than say, Windows Phone. It's OneCore based. Whereas CE is not OneCore based. – VoidStar Oct 02 '15 at 22:13