Something quite interesting I found...

As the debate rages on about what the future of the Desktop is and Win32 code and if WinRT will supersede it, I found this out just now. The OneDrive app in Windows 8.1.1 is not a true and true WinRT app from the looks of it; nor is the Photos app or PC Settings. They are all Win32 based apps that mesh into the Modern UI WinRT environment with the system contracts (Charms bar) but are a Win32 system resource.

This is quite interesting as if I'm correct, this means Win32 code can function in Modern UI and can potentially have the power of what is expected of and used in the Desktop UI. The WinRT apps like Xbox Music are genuine WinRT apps that use certain system functions like wwahost.exe from the System32 folder, but the actual junk of the app is kept hidden away from the file system.

So what could this mean? Sandboxed Win32 programs that can take full function of modern inputs, design, and functions that older Win32 Desktop code can't handle. This could mean instead of porting Desktop apps to WinRT and figuring out how to work around a lot of the newer standards (which some seem arbitrary to me), much of existing Win32 code can be kept, reshaped, or recycled and brought over into the modern UI framework like the Charms bar, app snap, instant suspend and resume, and tombstoning. This could mean VMWare could be developed as what would be considered a Windows 8 style app, or Photoshop, or Lightroom, or AutoCAD, or Zune, or Office, or Steam, or cgminer, or audio editing programs, etc.

It seems like a lot of potential needs to be uncovered here as if the critical flaw of Win32 coding of app performance and security can be wrapped up into a modern little sandboxed bubble and run, that is HUGE. The power of Windows can still function beyond a simple UI.

Well, sorry to disappoint you, Microsoft has already revealed this information and certain software geeks are already trying to build and run Metro (Win32, as you realize) apps.

Anyway, useful information

gokulnc said:

Well, sorry to disappoint you, Microsoft has already revealed this information and certain software geeks are already trying to build and run Metro (Win32, as you realize) apps.

Anyway, useful information

Click to expand...

Hi there
Question -- With mobile devices even soon to have 8 CORE processors why on earth should we restrict our apps to Win32. It's like only using a fraction of the potential of these devices -- what about decent CPU intensive metro apps like a lot of serious management type of "What IF" queries etc -- any sort of forecasting / trending / etc.

If these apps are to become anything REMOTELY useful for professional people and away from the individual user who just say wants an update of Cricket / Football scores you are going to have to design sensible professional applications which WILL need the 64 bit memory space and the power of multiple cores - even on a tablet.

Restricting to Win32 seems going BACKWARDS -- it would make more sense to develop for the MORE powerful platform first (Windows) and then work out whats worth porting to ARM / Windows 32.

Cheers
jimbo