Microsoft Surface RT Jail Break and Boot in XP

[Moonpig]

Do you think it will be possible to boot a Microsoft surface RT in windows XP with a sort of jail break, so that it can run legacy window XP software?

Would the hardware be able to do this, or is it just too early to predict?


Thanks

 

[J515OP]

No, that is not possible. Windows RT means it is running on mobile hardware like phones (ARM processors). Windows XP runs on x86 processors (Intel and AMD) so it will not be possible to run Windows XP on a Windows RT device. However, the Surface Pro and other Windows 8 tables (not Windows RT) will be able to run software that was able to run in Windows XP.

You just need to look at Windows 8 tablets (Microsoft's version is called the Surface Pro but others will make them as well) and not Windows RT.

 

[Moonpig]

Thanks for reply.

I did a little research and people have got Windows 95 to work on ARM, but its only an emulation. Does that mean it would not run windows 95 legacy software?

 

[J515OP]

That is correct. Theoretically the only Windows applications RT will be able to run is Windows 8 ported over apps. The way Windows 8 was designed should make it easy to make things also work on RT but anything that was pre Windows 8 will not. Of course there may be exceptions and some developers may choose to make older things work on Windows RT but the amount of effort to do that makes it very unlikely especially when anybody who needs that kind of legacy support can simply opt for the full Windows 8 tablets instead of RT.