Windows XP Installed On iPaq?

[Marco Genovese]

Has anyone installed windows xp on an iPAQ? They have 624 MHZ processors and mine has 128 MB ram so why not?

[Darius Wey]

Because of the different device architecture, it's not as simple as placing it on a memory card and waiting for it to install. A lot of software engineering needs to be done in order for it to work - and even then, it's not even worth doing, because Windows XP on a mobile 624MHz CPU and limited RAM will yield snail's pace performance. Getting Windows 98 to work on a Pocket PC isn't a huge ask (in fact, it has been done before). XP is a stretch, though.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

If you want a direct comparison, the 624MHz Xscale CPU is about equivalent to an old 386 computer running between 16MHz to 20MHz. Someone managed to get Win95 running once, but it was as slow as molasses. DOS is fine, though you'd have difficulty with any program that was release after about 1993-94.

[ADBrown]

If you want a direct comparison, the 624MHz Xscale CPU is about equivalent to an old 386 computer running between 16MHz to 20MHz.

Well, that's rather a severe exaggeration, but it's true that it's not possible to run XP on a PPC. They're completely different hardware architectures, and not compatible.

[Nurhisham Hussein]

Not really - though admittedly this is with the overhead of using an x86 emulator like PocketDOS. Take that away, and you might end up with say, double that speed at most?

[haesslich]

I'd have to say that it's more like a 486SX or something below a Pentium in terms of processing power - plus, Windows XP needs drivers for the hardware which simply don't exist for PPC equipment, plus the footprint for the OS alone would be bigger than most flash cards sold for under $200. :D

It's like asking someone if you could put a twin-engine Cessna onto a Saturn-V rocket for space travel; the hardware isn't designed for it, and trying to force one onto the other simply will result in disaster.

[JesterMania]

Getting Windows 98 to work on a Pocket PC isn't a huge ask (in fact, it has been done before). XP is a stretch, though.

Darius, care to give any resources on doing that? :wink: I'd love to give it a try just as an experiment.

[Darius Wey]

Darius, care to give any resources on doing that? :wink: I'd love to give it a try just as an experiment.

Have "fun". ;)

http://www.pocketgamer.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3660

[JesterMania]

Wow thanks, looks interesting. :mrgreen:

[Cybrid]

If you want a direct comparison, the 624MHz Xscale CPU is about equivalent to an old 386 computer running between 16MHz to 20MHz. Someone managed to get Win95 running once, but it was as slow as molasses. DOS is fine, though you'd have difficulty with any program that was release after about 1993-94.Out of curiosity...anyone have some benchmarks anywhere? some comparisons...? Nearest I can remember was some distributed computing model which Sven linked to about 10 PPC's in a cluster being the equivalent processing power of a PII?

Edit:

http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/about/pressreleases/2003/pocketcluster.html?en

[ADBrown]

Out of curiosity...anyone have some benchmarks anywhere? some comparisons...? Nearest I can remember was some distributed computing model which Sven linked to about 10 PPC's in a cluster being the equivalent processing power of a PII?

There's no really accurate way to do benchmarks across processor architectures such as ARM and X86. If there were, there wouldn't have been as much of an argument over whether the Intel or Mac processors were faster. You can try simple calculations like megaflops, but that doesn't reflect real-world performance. For instance, a 624 MHz Pocket PC only rates about 1.9 Mflops, but will easily play videos that could choke a P2 266 that scores 12 times that number. (I know, I've tried it.) But on other applications they can barely keep up with a 486 at 66 MHz.

Part of the speed divergence in simple floating-point calculations is that the XScale processors don't have math coprocessors. This means that they'll fare poorly in almost any kind of artificial benchmark against PCs.

[Joelacrane]

This is very interesting. I would love to emulate Windows 98 on my Pocket PC. We'd be playing starcraft in no time!

I just wish there was a complete set of instructions somewhere. I'm halfway through the thread.

Now imagine NT4 or Windows 2000! Tha'd be pretty sweet.