How to Install Microsoft windows 10 IOT on Raspberry PI 4 ?

[NBHD0720]

Hello All,
How to Install Microsoft windows 10 IOT on Raspberry PI 4 ? and It's possible?
Thanks

[fruitoftheloom]

Hello All,
How to Install Microsoft windows 10 IOT on Raspberry PI 4 ? and It's possible?
Thanks

You need to ask Microsoft via their Forum what their plans are, as they are solely responsible for development:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forum ... WindowsIoT

[GlowInTheDark]

I think (emphasis on "think") that the current answer is that it isn't available for the Pi4 yet.

[trejan]

Don't hold your breath for Pi 4 support as it looks like Microsoft has abandoned development of Windows 10 IoT Core for Raspberry Pi. They only made a single release for the 3B+ a couple years ago and it was a technical preview.

[hippy]

The only supported official Windows 10 IoT releases are for the Pi 2B rev 1.1 and Pi 3B (non-plus).

There was a non-supported technical preview for the Pi 3B+ as noted, which might work on the 2B rev 1.2

There are only 'less than useless' responses coming from Microsoft whenever anyone asks about Windows 10 IoT on the 4B so I would guess it isn't likely to happen.

[Heater]

Given that Win 10 IOT is not supported by it's creator I would advise against spending any significant time on developing anything with/for it.

[Redkey]

I've been investigating installing Windows 10 IOT core on the newest RP4. I have it working well with a RP3 b and I can develop remotely with VS2019 (community edition). I'm able to Program in C# which is what I'm interested in at the moment. Obviously I wish I could update to the latest RP4. I've been researching and it seems like Microsoft gave the community a working version of IOT core for the earlier version of the RP and gave us the ability to migrate with a Board Support Package (BSP) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... -a-new-bsp. I'm guessing that for some of the updates it would be about looking at what has changed in the Raspian files and somehow reflecting those changes in a BSP. The onboard Memory(RAM) might be a new kettle of fish.
Also I noticed that for the last version that Microsoft had working well(RS3B), there was a complete data sheet For the Broadcom part. Maybe getting microsoft to provide an update might be as simple as providing Microsoft with updated documentation, however there may be some NDA issues with Broadcom/raspberrypi.org.
My programming skills are not super strong. Most of my career I did assembly programming for Microchips products, More recently Some C, C++ and C #, the latter in VS2019.
Anyway I'm willing to donate some time to the project, if others are interested in doing the same. Thoughts?

Thanks
Ken

[Heater]

Redkey,

Anyway I'm willing to donate some time to the project, if others are interested in doing the same. Thoughts?

My thought is to ask why one would want to spend ones time supporting a closed source operating system from one of the worlds richest companies for free?

[fruitoftheloom]

I've been investigating installing Windows 10 IOT core on the newest RP4. I have it working well with a RP3 b and I can develop remotely with VS2019 (community edition). I'm able to Program in C# which is what I'm interested in at the moment. Obviously I wish I could update to the latest RP4. I've been researching and it seems like Microsoft gave the community a working version of IOT core for the earlier version of the RP and gave us the ability to migrate with a Board Support Package (BSP) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... -a-new-bsp. I'm guessing that for some of the updates it would be about looking at what has changed in the Raspian files and somehow reflecting those changes in a BSP. The onboard Memory(RAM) might be a new kettle of fish.
Also I noticed that for the last version that Microsoft had working well(RS3B), there was a complete data sheet For the Broadcom part. Maybe getting microsoft to provide an update might be as simple as providing Microsoft with updated documentation, however there may be some NDA issues with Broadcom/raspberrypi.org.
My programming skills are not super strong. Most of my career I did assembly programming for Microchips products, More recently Some C, C++ and C #, the latter in VS2019.
Anyway I'm willing to donate some time to the project, if others are interested in doing the same. Thoughts?

Thanks
Ken

Microsoft ARM products run Qualcomm SoCs and that is the best way forward at this time in my opinion.

[Redkey]

I did give this some thought. Microsoft doesn't charge for commercial use of IOT Core( there is some requirement to allow for updating) or VS2019(Community) and it recently announced 10 years of support for the IOT Core. Raspberry PI is supposed to be open source and , in my opinion should be, OS agnostic. In fact with a bit more documentation one could develop a quick and agile RTOS for very specific use, although it is a bit like reinventing the wheel in most cases. But mostly to leverage the VS2019, it cross compiles all kinds of languages and offers single step debugging to remote target. This makes it easy to build PC apps, android apps and RP4 apps, all at the same time.

[fruitoftheloom]

I did give this some thought. Microsoft doesn't charge for commercial use of IOT Core( there is some requirement to allow for updating) or VS2019(Community) and it recently announced 10 years of support for the IOT Core. Raspberry PI is supposed to be open source and , in my opinion should be, OS agnostic. In fact with a bit more documentation one could develop a quick and agile RTOS for very specific use, although it is a bit like reinventing the wheel in most cases. But mostly to leverage the VS2019, it cross compiles all kinds of languages and offers single step debugging to remote target. This makes it easy to build PC apps, android apps and RP4 apps, all at the same time.

The Raspberry Pi SBC is not open hardware.


Look at 96Boards if open hardware is a requirement.

https://www.96boards.org/


Microsoft MSDN Forum is a good place to preach your ideals and requirements:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forum ... WindowsIoT

[Redkey]

"The Raspberry Pi SBC is not open hardware."
I didn't realize that. I had seen some schematics and some older Data sheets and I assumed that it was. Thanks for the qualcomm suggestion. They do offer some hardware boards that would probably work, but not priced like the RP4. But maybe I have that wrong also. When I was at Microcenter recently, the pricing went up with quantity. (?)

So if I decide not to swim upstream and go with Raspian, what Tool chain and language will I find the most support in?

Thanks
Ken

PS. I have no real love for Microsoft, but they did seem to be making an effort to get a piece of the Pi!

[fruitoftheloom]

"The Raspberry Pi SBC is not open hardware."
I didn't realize that. I had seen some schematics and some older Data sheets and I assumed that it was. Thanks for the qualcomm suggestion. They do offer some hardware boards that would probably work, but not priced like the RP4. But maybe I have that wrong also. When I was at Microcenter recently, the pricing went up with quantity. (?)

So if I decide not to swim upstream and go with Raspian, what Tool chain and language will I find the most support in?

Thanks
Ken

PS. I have no real love for Microsoft, but they did seem to be making an effort to get a piece of the Pi!

The Dragonboard 410C is supported by MS:

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/drago ... ment-tools



There is no requirement for the Raspberry Pi SBC to be open hardware, Microsoft ( or any other Operating System developer ) have enough information to create an Operating System if they so choose to do so.......

[Daniel Gessel]

So if I decide not to swim upstream and go with Raspian, what Tool chain and language will I find the most support in?

Based on the board activity here, the fact that ”Pi” intentionally evokes Py(thon) and my own observations, Python is both the best supported and most popular language. I don’t use IDE’s (unless Emacs counts as one) but a few are preinstalled on Raspian so are presumably a good place to start.

I like C, which is pretty well supported but sometimes harder to find code samples to ease development (some of the Python code is fairly sophisticated and takes me a while to understand well enough to translate). But C is the language of the Linux kernel, so support is quite good and the board here is quite active. C++, which I’m not using right now, is also quite popular. Again, I just use Emacs and then gcc to build and link. I have a little Python build script which I find easier to manage than Makefiles for my project tree, but IDE’s can manage C/C++ build processes.

[Heater]

Redkey,

Microsoft doesn't charge for commercial use of IOT Core( there is some requirement to allow for updating) or VS2019(Community) and it recently announced 10 years of support for the IOT Core.

It charges by virtue of the fact that you need a Windows operating system to develop for it.

Clearly it is the intention of MS that people will us it with their Azure Cloud services, IoT and all that, thus bringing money to them rather than sombody else.

Money aside, I don't think it's healthy to have ones computing infrastructure, now including IoT, dependent on one company, which for most is out of their control in a foriegn country.

Raspberry PI is supposed to be open source...

No. The Rasperry Pi is hardware. As such it is no more open source than pretty much all other harware out there. It is dependent on closed source firmware.

It is though operating system agnostic. As evidenced by the fact that ther are about 100 operating systems running on it, including MS IoT and some that asre not Linux based.

In fact with a bit more documentation one could develop a quick and agile RTOS for very specific use, although it is a bit like reinventing the wheel in most cases.

It has been done. More than once. Even without the best documentation.

But mostly to leverage the VS2019,...

Fine idea. If you happy being dependent on MS.

[Redkey]

Thanks to everyone who responded and thanks for the great solutions. Here's a recent headline "NXP releases i.MX 6/7/8 BSPs for Windows 10 IoT Core" . and you'll find details of the agreement here. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot. So the Idea of a hardware manufacturer providing a BSP to microsoft isn't completely outrageous. My only remaining question is if Raspberrypi.org has a reason/desire/principle that makes it not want to provide this development path. Reading the current mission statement, such a release seems in line with the founders , however as was pointed out even though MS tools are free, It does require running a PC with windows which is not free. Having said that, it's a cost that most of the Pi developers have paid for one reason or another. If the foundation doesn't want a BSP, I would respect that, but I think they should just come out and say it outright.

Thanks Again

Ken

[Heater]

Redkey,

So the Idea of a hardware manufacturer providing a BSP to microsoft isn't completely outrageous.

Quite so.

Manufacturers like NXP are for profit corporations whose mission is to maximize profit. As such we can imagine why they might do such a thing.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a a charitable organization with an educational mission. As such I would be disgusted to find they use any of their resources to support a huge and profitable company, in a foreign country.

...it's a cost that most of the Pi developers have paid for one reason or another.

I you sure about that? There is a lot of Mac users out there. We should not be exclusory.

If the foundation doesn't want a BSP, I would respect that, but I think they should just come out and say it outright.

Why?

The BSP they supply is Rapbian. All is good.

[Daniel Gessel]

My only remaining question is if Raspberrypi.org has a reason/desire/principle that makes it not want to provide this development path.
...
If the foundation doesn't want a BSP, I would respect that, but I think they should just come out and say it outright.

Providing a “BSP” costs resources which can be better spent on Raspian.

I doubt they would want to stop MS from providing a BSP - they seem pretty open to letting everybody in.

[Imperf3kt]

Redkey,

Anyway I'm willing to donate some time to the project, if others are interested in doing the same. Thoughts?

My thought is to ask why one would want to spend ones time supporting a closed source operating system from one of the worlds richest companies for free?

It isn't rocket science, there is a desire, Microsoft isn't providing, so "I'll do it myself" suddenly becomes a viable method to get what one wants.

I'm pretty sure that's how this thing called "Linux" came to be, there was a desire and the current operating systems weren't providing, so somebody went and did the work themselves.

[GlowInTheDark]

I'm pretty sure that's how this thing called "Linux" came to be, there was a desire and the current operating systems weren't providing, so somebody went and did the work themselves.

I thought it was just that some guy was casting about for an idea for a master's thesis, and heard about this thing called Minix.

The rest, they say, is history.

[Imperf3kt]

Not according to Wikipedia.

MINIX's 16-bit design was not well adapted to the 32-bit features of the increasingly cheap and popular Intel 386 architecture for personal computers. In the early nineties a commercial UNIX operating system for Intel 386 PCs was too expensive for private users.

These factors and the lack of a widely adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for Torvalds' starting his project. He has stated that if either the GNU Hurd or 386BSD kernels had been available at the time, he likely would not have written his own.

[hippy]

Manufacturers like NXP are for profit corporations whose mission is to maximize profit. As such we can imagine why they might do such a thing.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a a charitable organization with an educational mission. As such I would be disgusted to find they use any of their resources to support a huge and profitable company, in a foreign country.

Raspberry Pi Trading is a for-profit commercial business whose mission is to generate profit which pays its staff, funds further developments, and generates gift-aided income for the Foundation to further their goals.

There's nothing I can see wrong with supporting huge and profitable companies, even those in foreign countries, when it benefits the Foundation or the Pi community. It's merely a business matter, though you seem to think it should be more ideological, and particularly when it comes to Microsoft.

[Heater]

hippy,

...particularly when it comes to Microsoft.

What do you mean? I love Microsoft, I use an MS Surface Pro 4 everyday. I use Github and VSCode everyday.

I happen to think it's bad idea for the worlds computing infrastructure to be dependent on a single corporation. Which traditionally has been MS but need not be.

I happen to think the education of a children should not be dependent on such a corporation. Be it MS or Apple or whoever.

I happen to notice the Pi and the Foundation has been doing very well with out that lock in.

I hope that continues.

[hippy]

I happen to think the education of a children should not be dependent on such a corporation. Be it MS or Apple or whoever.

I don't see anyone arguing that it should be nor see how it ever would be. Getting Windows 10 IOT to work on a Pi 4B is hardly going to deliver that outcome.

[jamesh]

Thanks to everyone who responded and thanks for the great solutions. Here's a recent headline "NXP releases i.MX 6/7/8 BSPs for Windows 10 IoT Core" . and you'll find details of the agreement here. https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot. So the Idea of a hardware manufacturer providing a BSP to microsoft isn't completely outrageous. My only remaining question is if Raspberrypi.org has a reason/desire/principle that makes it not want to provide this development path. Reading the current mission statement, such a release seems in line with the founders , however as was pointed out even though MS tools are free, It does require running a PC with windows which is not free. Having said that, it's a cost that most of the Pi developers have paid for one reason or another. If the foundation doesn't want a BSP, I would respect that, but I think they should just come out and say it outright.

Thanks Again

Ken

I'm Trading rather than Foundation, but as far as I know, we do not intend to do a BSP for Win10 for the Pi4. Apart from a lack of any real profit motive, we have limited staff available and none with Win10IoT experience, and what staff we do have are pretty busy on more important stuff. We would probably be happy supporting MS with advice if they wanted to do it, but that would be the limit of our involvement.

I suspect that a BSP could be written by a third party experienced in it, using any existing one from earlier versions, and with help from the forums and the Linux source code.