Microsoft introduced a new Application Binary Interface (ABI) called ARM64EC. This should allow the creation of applications for Windows 11 on ARM processors that, according to the publisher, reach native speeds and are compatible with x64 architectures. From now on, it will be possible in this way to freely mix individual applications, processes and modules of both ARM64EC and x64.
“EC” in ARM64EC stands for “Emulation Compatible” and is Microsoft’s name for the new way to build apps for Windows 11 on ARM. Applications built as emulation-compatible with ARM64 can have x64 code, but it is not necessary: According to the announcement in the Windows Developer Blog, existing applications with new technology should achieve native speeds on ARM in the transition if there are dependencies and components ARM add-ons not yet supported.
Applications gradually adapt to ARM64
In the traditional process, adapting the application to the ARM architecture requires recompiling the entire application. With Microsoft’s binary application interface, the transfer should work incrementally, that is, in small steps. As a result, developers can select those parts of their code base that they want to give native ARM performance, without first transforming their application’s entire code base from the inside out. At the same time, x64 plug-ins must still be able to load and integrate (the “mix and match” principle).
According to the blog post The Microsoft team has already built Windows 11 binaries on ARM internally using the new technology and any system code loaded by an x64 application should run here at the original speed. Also The upcoming 64-bit Office version for ARM should work on the same principle, can be found in the blog entry.
At the moment, it is only accessible to Windows Insider users
If you are curious, you can get the ARM64EC With Windows Insider SDK and current Visual Studio preview Both downloads contain an ABI – Insider content is currently only available to members of the Windows Insider Program. corresponding chapters in الفصول Microsoft documentation about configuring ARM64EC.
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