Support ARM64 Windows desktop

[jkunkee]

Is your suggestion related to a problem?
At present the Electron project does not support the new Windows 10 on ARM (ARM64 Win32) platform. One of its dependencies is Node.js, which also does not support it. This means that on these devices Electron apps run emulated which, with the complexity of Electron, means a suboptimal user experience.

Describe the solution you'd like
I would like Node.js to support Windows 10 on ARM. Ideally this would include any tweaks needed to make Electron embedding easier, and I would be pleased as punch to see Node.js host ARM64 Windows EXEs on its main page.

Describe alternatives you've considered
As mentioned earlier, Windows 10 on ARM includes an IA32 emulation layer that runs Node.js. This works well for many applications, but my prototype ARM64 build of Node.js runs much faster in significantly less memory.

[jkunkee]

Per my message to the mailing list, this is not a simple request, but it is one for which I'm willing to do most of the heavy lifting.

This was also discussed in the build repo: nodejs/build#1138

My prototyping branch is here:
https://github.com/jkunkee/node/tree/arm64

Branch with everything merged so it builds and passes tests:
https://github.com/jkunkee/node/tree/wip/arm64-merged-for-build

Node.js changes:

• OpenSSL configs (PR: openssl: add arm64 Windows config files #26001)
• Build system changes (PR: win, build: arm64 port script and doc changes #25995)
• Ingest GYP with MARMASM support (PR gyp, win: teach MSVS generator about MARMASM Items #26020 will be overwritten by tools: replace GYP with GYP3 #26620)
• Ingest NPM with node-gyp with ARM64 support (PR deps: cherry-pick ARM64 Windows changes to node-gyp #28604)
• Node.js v12 picks up deps: cherry-pick ARM64 Windows changes to node-gyp #28604 and deps, v8: strip out overly broad DLL Export annotations #28602

Bonus changes:

• Add convenience features to vcbuild.bat (PR: win, build: add arbitrary MSBuild flag option and binlog option #25994)
• Add ARM64 Windows to the native modules setup scripts suggested by node-gyp (PR: Add ARM64 Windows tool option felixrieseberg/windows-build-tools#176)

Needed deps updates:

• GYP MARMASM support
  • Upstream: msvs: add ARM64 build file generation refack/GYP3#23
  • node.js: gyp, win: teach MSVS generator about MARMASM Items #26020
  • optional node-gyp Add arm64 asm node-gyp#1679
• GYP ARM64 full native modules support
  • Upstream: msvs: Support ARM64 configuration platform refack/GYP3#33
  • node-gyp: msvs: Add support for Windows on Arm node-gyp#1739
• node-gyp - ARM64 support for tests' native modules (src: add arm64 to Windows native module compilation node-gyp#1655)
• node-gyp - ARM64 support for 3rd party native modules (configure: Enable ARM64 single-toolchain build on Windows node-gyp#1678)
• node-gyp - make release with above changes (issue Make release with ARM64 Windows support node-gyp#1764)
• NPM - ingest node-gyp with above changes (npm has taken node-gyp v5+)
• v8 to 7.3 (PR deps: update V8 to 7.3 #25852; ETA ~Mar 12)
• v8 7.3 patches for ARM64 Windows (Merge and backport tracked in discussion of PR deps: get new v8 building for ARM64 Windows #26087)
• OpenSSL
• ICU (upstream PR done: ICU-20382 ICU4C: pkgdata and genccode support ARM32 but not ARM64 on Windows unicode-org/icu#412; backport PR: deps: backport ICU fix for ARM64 Windows #26090)
• OpenSSL TLS regression fix (PR: deps: make VC-WIN config generation deterministic #27543 and deps: regenerate OpenSSL configs with fixed tooling #27544)
• V8_EXPORT_PRIVATE regression fix (deps, v8: strip out overly broad DLL Export annotations #28602)

[refack]

• GYP (necessary change not yet upstream)

What's needed from GYP?
Happy to accept PRs to https://github.com/refack/GYP

[jkunkee]

OpenSSL config PR: #26001

[jkunkee]

@refack, here you go: refack/GYP3#23

[jkunkee]

refack/GYP3#23 also submitted as #26020 so it can be merged sooner.

[jefgen]

FYI, @jkunkee the ARM64 change for ICU is here: unicode-org/icu#412, and the ICU issue/ticket is: ICU-20382.

[jkunkee]

(progress-tracking comment updated)

[jkunkee]

For those interested, my hope is for Electron 6 to support Windows 10 on ARM (natively, not via emulation). electron/electron#16876

[jkunkee]

[EDIT: merged info into earlier comment]

[dennisameling]

The team is waiting for machines they can use in their CI: nodejs/build#2540

For anyone who's interested, you can build NodeJS ARM64 yourself today by doing the following:

• Install Wix Toolset 3.14
• Fork/clone the NodeJS repo
• git checkout v16.13.0 (or whatever version you want to build)
• .\vcbuild.bat arm64 release msi

Currently, Windows ARM64 is "guaranteed to build" as it's in Tier 2 for compiling: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/BUILDING.md#strategy - so this should work without problems in future versions as well.

Here's a recent 16.13.0 build from a few days ago: https://github.com/dennisameling/node/releases/tag/v16.13.0-arm64

[pb5050]

The team is waiting for machines they can use in their CI: nodejs/build#2540

For anyone who's interested, you can build NodeJS ARM64 yourself today by doing the following:

• Install Wix Toolset 3.14
• Fork/clone the NodeJS repo
• git checkout v16.13.0 (or whatever version you want to build)
• .\vcbuild.bat arm64 release msi

Currently, Windows ARM64 is "guaranteed to build" as it's in Tier 2 for compiling: https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/BUILDING.md#strategy - so this should work without problems in future versions as well.

Here's a recent 16.13.0 build from a few days ago: https://github.com/dennisameling/node/releases/tag/v16.13.0-arm64

you great a great grreat contributor i see you everywhere windows should pay you for all the work and advancement you have done for windows on arm

keep it up! you inspire

[pb5050]

Thankyou for your continued support for Windows ARM64. Will you be publishing a pre built installer at https://nodejs.org/en/download/ ?

any plans on this? seems like its time

[hajekj]

I believe obtaining build agents should now be much more easier thanks to Arm-based processors coming to Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/now-in-preview-azure-virtual-machines-with-ampere-altra-armbased-processors/

If needed I can provide a part of my subscription to host the required VMs.

If you need to get in touch with me regarding this, please reach out at: jan.hajek@thenetw.org

[nonsenseless]

• Install Wix Toolset 3.14
• Fork/clone the NodeJS repo
• git checkout v16.13.0 (or whatever version you want to build)
• .\vcbuild.bat arm64 release msi

@dennisameling Thank you for the notes! I was able to install wix 3.14 and added a path variable for WIX, but I'm wondering if there are any other environment config steps I should be aware of? I'm getting the following error running the script:

Looking for Python
Python found in C:\Python310\\python.exe
Looking for Visual Studio 2019
Looking for Visual Studio 2017
Looking for WiX installation for Visual Studio 2017...
Failed to find the WiX Toolset Visual Studio 2017 Extension
Failed to find a suitable Visual Studio installation.
Try to run in a "Developer Command Prompt" or consult
https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/HEAD/BUILDING.md#windows

and I'm afraid to dick around with vcbat much further since (I believe) VS 2022 is the first version to support arm64. The error seems to be tied to VCINSTALLDIR being null; do you have any idea what might be going wrong?

Edit: The same thing happens whether I try running from cmd, a developer prompt launched by visual studio, git bash, or power shell.

[sxa]

@nonsenseless Which VS version do you have installed? We've built it with 2019 without problems so if you have that and it's not detected that would be a problem (VS2019 what's on our build machines)

[richardlau]

Not sure whether ARM64 differs, but on x64 you need both the Wix Toolset and the WiX Toolset Visual Studio Extension (we're using the VS 2019 version in our CI).

[nonsenseless]

@richardlau I went back and I realize that when I tried to install VS2019 and it gave me a stability warning about not being supported on ARM64 I interpreted that as "You can't install this" instead of as "Good luck". I pressed through, installed, added the wix extension for 2019, and then the build steps worked for the version I'd pulled down. Thank you for your help!

[jkunkee]

I'm happy to hear you're making progress, @nonsenseless!

since (I believe) VS 2022 is the first version to support arm64
it gave me a stability warning about not being supported on ARM64
"Good luck"

Got there in the end. The VS team would have worded that carefully to help forestall perf and functionality bugs that their dev and triage processes was not equipped to handle. "Good luck" is the right interpretation, though it could also be seen as "yes, we know it's slow, no, it's not a bug" or "we won't chase down broken corner cases if there are any." The goal of the x86 and x64 emulators is that apps--even ones as complex as VS--just work, unmodified. :)

As you've figured out, VS 2022 is the first to officially support running on ARM64. On ARM64 Windows 11 (which has the ARM64 and x64 .NET Frameworks as well as x86), devenv.exe, msbuild.exe, cl.exe, csc.exe--everything runs natively without emulation. (You can use varargs.cmd to force the use of x64- or x86-hosted tools just as on x64; they'll just run slower.)

IIRC, VS has supported generating ARM64 code officially since VS 2019, with experimental support introduced later in VS 2017. (I believe I used VS 2017 to bootstrap the Node.js build for ARM64 Windows.)

VS 2022 is also getting support for ARM64EC, an emulation-compatible native ABI. There are some fun possibilities here for Node.js (think native ARM64 JIT with x64 binary module compat), but they are neither trivial nor salient to this thread. :)

[github-actions]

There has been no activity on this feature request for 5 months and it is unlikely to be implemented. It will be closed 6 months after the last non-automated comment.

For more information on how the project manages feature requests, please consult the feature request management document.

[Alovchin91]

Nope, not so fast! By now you have everything in place to implement this.

[Blackhex]

We are also looking into this. So far only #46231 and #46420 seem to be issues to compile Node on Windows ARM64 with VS 2022.

[joespeed]

fixed per @eukarpov #46231 (comment)

[sxa]

Note that in terms of activity on this front, most of the discussion has been happening over in nodejs/build#3046 and it is being built as part of our regular CI runs - it just hasn't made it to being a production release platform yet.