I’ve heard numerous folks who attended Build in person and/or via Webcasts say that there will be no Desktop app experience when Windows 8 ships on PCs and tablets running on ARM processors. Until today, I thought the same. But this is not correct.
Microsoft officials have been saying for months that existing x86 applications won’t just run on Windows on ARM; they will need to be recompiled. Microsoft is hoping and expecting that the majority of devs will go to the trouble of “Metro-izing” their apps while they are recompiling them to run on Windows 8 on ARM. However, that is guidance, and not a requirement.
via ZDNet – Microsoft: Desktop apps will run on Windows 8 on ARM. That’s the decision that could keep Windows 8 from being truly awesome.