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I recently bought a RPi and it came with Debian, which I think is a Linux distribution. I'm more used to Windows; can I install it?

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9
  • 9
    This probably doesn't count, but you can install Windows 3.1 under dosbox.
    – finnw
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 15:25
  • 2
    I wouldn't - it is an example question.
    – Alex Chamberlain
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 15:45
  • One reason you might want to is to run a classic game that has not been ported to Linux, but which the Pi has enough processing power to run. e.g. the original Starcraft.
    – finnw
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 16:14
  • Wasn't NT3.51 available for ARM?
    – Martin Thompson
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 20:18
  • @MartinThompson, not ARM, but PowerPC and MIPS
    – finnw
    Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 10:10

10 Answers 10

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No. At this point in time, Windows cannot be installed on the Raspberry Pi.

Windows is designed for the x86 and x86-64 architectures (32 and 64 bit architecture respectively).

The RPi has an ARM architecture, which is incompatible.

Windows 10

Microsoft have announced that Windows 10 will ship a version that supports Raspberry Pi 2.

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  • Windows 7 Phone supports ARM as far as I know.
    – Itay Grudev
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 16:30
  • 1
    I suspect it does, but can you get installation media?
    – Alex Chamberlain
    Commented Jun 13, 2012 at 16:33
  • The RPi uses ARM11. From the RPi FAQs: Broadcom BCM2835 ARM1176JZFS.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 17:16
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    @AndrewLarsson - ARM11 chips are ARM v6 architecture. Confusing I know. Also, even if Windows RT targets ARM v6 (ARM11) rather than v7 (ARM Cortex-A series used in many tablets), current Raspberry Pi models fail several other of the hardware requirements for Windows 8.
    – Mark Booth
    Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 18:04
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    Wikipedia: "ARM11 is an ARM architecture 32-bit RISC microprocessor family which introduced the ARMv6 architectural additions." I stand corrected, and yes, that's very confusing. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go rethink my life.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Jun 14, 2012 at 20:27
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Windows 8 will have an ARM version known as "WinRT" so the question isn't quite as outlandish as it might seem. But it RasPi uses an earlier ARM version than that targeted by WinRT (technologically the RaspPi isn't anywhere leading edge - one reason for the price), so it will not run WinRT.

Also even if the ARM architectures matched, I suspect WinRT would have memory requirements that would give the RasPi trouble.

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8

Nope, because Windows isn't compiled for ARM (and not being open source, you can't do it yourself.)

Yes, Windows 8 is apparently going to have an ARM version, though I seriously doubt it will work for a few main reasons:

  • Drivers for all the components would have to be written, licensed and released
  • I seriously doubt Windows 8 will run at all with 256MB RAM
  • Even if it did technically compile and run with drivers, it'd likely be unusable in terms of speed because of its hardware requirements.

It's technically possible that if a future "model C" were to be released (I'm just speculating) the hardware requirements may be good enough, alleviating some of the above issues - but from a practical perspective I don't think running Windows is ever going to be hugely feasible.

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5

Well, someone has managed to get Windows 7 running on the Raspberry Pi, albeit via VMWare View Open Client. You can find more information about it on the Raspberry Pi Foundation's blog post.

And finally, Warrington Collegiate have been working on getting Windows 7 (!) running on the Raspberry Pi using the VMware View Open Client. We think they’re the first people to have done this – they’re calling it Magnum Pi, because we all love moustaches and Hawaiian shirts. Nick Smeltzer, their Director of IT Services emailed me to say that Microsoft already know about it…

You can download it from Microsoft SkyDrive.

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3
  • Please don't tell people to search on another site for a blog link. An external link should be for extra information. Your answer should be able to stand on its own.
    – user46
    Commented Jun 18, 2012 at 15:03
  • I just found this same article on the Raspberry Pi Foundation's blog, and I'm glad to see that someone else found it, too, and posted it here as an answer.
    – Andrew Larsson
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 16:48
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    It's not running Windows 7 - it's running VMWare View, and viewing a VM running somewhere else.
    – Alan B
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 15:09
2

A group of people got Windows 7 running on the RPi through the VMware Open Client. Link: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/magnum-pi. Scroll down to the bottom.

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1
  • Well, that is cool!
    – patchie
    Commented Oct 18, 2013 at 8:58
1

Maybe ReactOS (kind of an open source Windows+Linux-merge-reimplementation) is interesting for you, there seems to exist an ARM port. The discussion there also refers to Wine for ARM with "native" x86 support...

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1

You can run Windows Embedded Compact 7 on a Raspberry Pi.

A BSP for the RPi is available at Codeplex.

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4
  • I had no idea, but it looks like it's in very early Alpha at the moment. Also requires you to have WEC7 already.
    – Fred
    Commented Apr 5, 2014 at 9:02
  • It works just fine. My RPi is using that BSP. And yes it does, but running W8 requires you to have W8 already too, doesn't it?
    – Mikael Dúi Bolinder
    Commented Apr 5, 2014 at 12:01
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    That's awesome that it works! The site didn't really convey that to me.
    – Fred
    Commented Apr 6, 2014 at 17:23
  • Still lacks a lot of drivers but you can use it as a photo frame since it got a basic display driver, haha.
    – Mikael Dúi Bolinder
    Commented Apr 6, 2014 at 19:31
1

Now you can run Windows 10 IoT Core on your Raspberry Pi 2 B:

https://ms-iot.github.io/content/GetStarted.htm

You need to have Windows 10 Technical Preview installed on your PC.

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-3

so you can't actually download windows on raspberry pi only if you have a USB boot stick

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-4

I have the solution just like osmc or aosp os why don't create an os that only runs emulator For example the os will be such that when you open it you will only get qemu emulator or wine or whatever emulator you want that support to run win And viola you get to run Windows on rpi 3

As simple as child's play

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