In May 2022, Microsoft announced Project Volterra, a desktop computer that looked like a Mac mini with Snapdragon, but renamed it Windows Dev Kit 2023 and started selling it.
Microsoft appeals that this product has all the necessary functions for developing ARM version Windows apps. In addition to developers, it is also recommended for those who want a small ARM version of a Windows running machine.
Windows Development Kit 2023 is available in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. The body size is 196×152×27.6mm and the weight is 960g. The processor is Snapdragon 8cx Gen3, the graphics is Qualcomm Adreno GPU, the RAM is LPDDR4x 32GB, and the storage is 512GB NVMe. The operating system is Windows 11 Pro, and the input / output terminals are USB Type C 3.2 Gen 2 2, USB Type A 3, HBR2 compatible mini display port for primary monitor, Ethernet port, etc.
Additionally, it has an NPU similar to the Surface Pro 9, which allows developers to run hardware-accelerated AI tasks and machine learning workloads. In addition, Microsoft uses the NPU installed in Windows 11 to develop an excellent background noise removal algorithm that does not affect the CPU or GPU, such as Voice Focus.
Windows Development Kit 2023 is a terminal prepared for developers developing ARM Windows version apps to the last, but it appeals to be faithful in terms of software. In addition, Microsoft plans to launch a complete toolchain of ARM native apps available to developers, and Visual Studio 2022 will run natively on ARM versions of Windows starting with the latest version, and ARM performance has been improved in .NET 7 as well.
More apps, tools, frameworks and packages are being ported to natively target ARM versions of Windows, Microsoft said in the coming months. He added that thanks to the powerful emulation technology in Windows 11, developers can run x64 and x86 apps and tools on Windows Development Kit 2023 without much change.
Windows Development Kit 2023 also has access to native ARM versions of Microsoft Teams, Office, Edge and OneDrive. In addition, Linaro, an open source software development organization, announced the Windows on Arm Project, which aims to build an ecosystem in collaboration with ARM, CIX Technologies, Microsoft, and Qualcomm to promote the development of ARM versions of Windows apps that make it In this project, various apps running on the ARM version of Windows are being developed, and the apps being developed include Blender and OpenVPN. Other programming languages such as Python and Go were also included as part of the project. Relevant information can be found here.
