Happy holidays and a happy new year everyone.
Contacted WD Support. They told me their WD Discovery product is STILL not compatible with machines running ARM-based processors, and there is no plans at this time to re-compile WD Discovery to make it run on ARM-based processors. That’s ridiculous. ARM-based machines have been out for awhile now. There is a market for it. Not that I’m a software expert, but I also don’t think a re-compile is all that difficult to do.
But wait. It gets worse. Microsoft just released a new Win 10 Preview Build (21277). One of the most important features of this new build is x64 emulation. Meaning, once the Build is installed, Windows 10 machines with ARM-based processors should be able to successfully install and run x64 apps that run on Intel processors.
But when I installed the new Preview Build, and tried to install WD Discovery again, guess what? It didn’t work! Not surprised.
I give up. I guess I will just use the WD Home web-based app to access Plex directories Not sure what else to do.
A watched pot never boils.
Anybody have any suggestions?
You guys over at WD?
Your silence is deafening.
I still support and use WD products going forward, but WD is a major disappointment with this issue.
Cheers.
To be fair, before Apple’s move to introduce their own ARM-based processor into their laptop and desktop lineups, the level of growth in either segment for the processor was insignificant. This is of course a signal there is a change in the market and maybe why we are seeing more work done by Microsoft with the introduction of the emulator. Nevertheless, the primary focus of ARM has been on their mobile and internet of things devices. Few if any would ever be considered a host for Windows. Anyway, your request is fair and if we see more companies move to ARM-based processors for their laptops or desktops, we’ll likely see WD respond. The demand you place on this request is totally unreasonable given you justify the simplicity of rewriting the code to work on ARM and yet you prove it is not so simple as demonstrated by the lack of support even with the emulator.
Maybe you’ll find the released version of the window’s update will offer a working emulator? Hopefully it does.
Many thanks for your response.
Your points are very logical and sensible.
However, perhaps you misunderstood. I made no “demands,” and I don’t believe my statements were “unreasonable.”
I’m simply frustrated. Prior to installing Win 10 Preview Build 21277, I loaded (onto my Surface Pro X machine), several x86 apps; some obscure, and not as popular or mainstream. While obviously not optimized for the hardware in question, they all work. And apparently without needing the new Preview Build’s emulation functionality.
The lone exception here seems to be WD Discovery. Originally, I started to suspect that perhaps the incompatibility had nothing whatsoever to do with the Surface Pro X ARM-based processor; and that, I needed to just tweak machine configuration; turn off virus protection, etc. But neither was the case. The answer turned out to be that WD Discovery just won’t work on ARM-based machines. Emulation or not. Period. Figures that this should happen to the one app I use the most. Lol.
So this is why my elation with the Preview Build was of course short lived, as explained. The reported emulation functionality didn’t work as advertised, but now I know that it’s WD. Not the emulation. Hence, the frustration.
Hope this better explains my situation.
Happy New Year.
