Windows on Nintendo Switch

[Kimberly5384]

A few weeks ago I saw some pictures of Windows 10 ARM running on the Nintendo Switch. That got me thinking, are there earlier versions of Windows built for ARM that would work? I highly doubt it, but that would honestly be great to see.

[MrBurgerKing]

A few weeks ago I saw some pictures of Windows 10 ARM running on the Nintendo Switch. That got me thinking, are there earlier versions of Windows built for ARM that would work? I highly doubt it, but that would honestly be great to see.

Embedded/IOT versions of Windows, Windows Mobile/Windows Phone, Windows RT, and insider previews of Windows Server 2019 were all compiled for ARM, however whether or not they will work, and how well, depends on a lot of factors.
Did you see pictures of it running natively? I could only find people trying but failing to install it, or running emulation on top of linux.

The guy in the video used a UEFI bootloader to get to the install screen, which is available here:
https://github.com/imbushuo/NintendoSwitchPkg
And the firmware for graphics is available here:
https://github.com/imbushuo/Coreboot
So anyone who has a jailbroken switch and a lot of free time could try it out, but there isn't any practical reason to do so. The developer reported that Joycons, the touchscreen, gpu acceleration, internal emmc storage, usb and the side button are all non functional.
If you want a Windows tablet, it's better to just buy one.

[Kimberly5384]

Yes, in the end it would be better to just have a regular Windows tablet. If someone was really willing to develop something like Windows on the Switch it would take a lot of work, and probably wouldn't be very useful because it's Windows 10 ARM. Anyways, thanks for the reply, I like seeing other people's thoughts on this kind of stuff!

[GoldSolitude]

Its actually a really cool proof-of-concept but there isn't going to much drivers for it i guess nor will it be actually really usable or viable i think. These are only for the old exploitable switch's right? I'm not really too up to date on switch hax.

[Kimberly5384]

Well, a few new switches can do it. But they need a pretty specific firmware version. So yeah, basically only old exploitable ones work for now. I actually have one here.

[wavemaster76]

Mine is the new version from 2019 (with the red box instead of background), and arrived with firmware 8.0. To play some games, I needed to upgrade the firmware to 9.1.0 or something like this.

I don’t think you have any chance to hack your switch if you have the new version.

[yourepicfailure]

Pretty much the newer switches have two things going against them:

hardware rom patch for fusee
software patch in the form of stock v8 for dejavu

It's going to be a while for a remote chance for these revisions.

Even then, getting windows installed will require a lot more "down to earth" work than sticking an sd card in the slot and booting a setup. It will require reprogramming the roms and storage. Assuming someone is willing to write an init for the Switch's bootloader which also will require a lot of time and system knowledge.
There is already knowledge on W10 for Tegra X1, so that would help.

[Moline]

Do you guys think Windows 8 previews, or even Windows 8.1 RTM will be workable on a switch.

[Kimberly5384]

I highly doubt people will spend time developing Windows on Switch. But I think we'll have to wait and see...

[Moline]

That would be cool if someone is interested in this. Not sure how fast the Switch is in comparison to a Windows laptop, but must be pretty fast to run those resource intensive games, which I have to say will probably fail to run on most lower powered laptop's. If anything, Windows 8.1/10 would probably be the easiest to work with as we could probably modify a few things to trick the installer into thinking it's installing on a Surface device. This would also theoretically work with some of the Windows 8 preview builds as well as 8 RTM and Windows 10. Windows XP-7 do have tablet versions, but those may be harder, who knows. Putting 8.1 on an older Switch would certainly give it new life, especially if the rumored Nintendo Switch Pro gets released. This would also give Windows 8.1 new life, and depending on how fast the Switch is after this, we may even be able to have full speed Dolphin emulation, which means portable Gamecube/Wii games. In conclusion, someone should look into getting Windows 8.1 on the Switch. This could be a success if it can be done, and would encourage people to keep their older Switch models if they got a new one and are planning on selling the older.