Ok, I get it - Win-on-ARM with the intent to run Window's games.
Microsoft could of added that functionality to THEIR release however never did so...
"Winlator" is important & a big deal as it can/could de-couple 'Windows Games' from the actual Windows environment so they might be ran on hardware/software outside of it.
Given the nearly countless Android/Linux powered 'Gaming systems' with at least a Quad core APU (and quite a few with Octa core APU's) emulating Windows opens the door and enables running & playing Windows games without the nonsense that is Windows.
Now, create an environment where Steam/GoG/Other stores can install x86 games into and you can play without Microsoft and we've really gotten somewhere.
Who cares? The emu sucks anyway. And I mean no disrespect to the dev, just think what he's trying to do (windows x86 on android arm) will always be terrible, no matter how talented he is. There's just too much overhead and abstraction layers of translation that have to be done. Then there's the input, many pc games need full keyboard + a real mouse. Sure, there are titles with gamepad support but almost everyone of these has been ported to a console system which is far better emulated than trying to run windows x86 executables.
Would much rather devs focus on bringing online multiplayer functionality to console emus on android. That would literally be a big deal.
My understanding was also that this was not a false positive, but a functional windows virus which would infect other executables. The virus could spread to a user's main PC if they ever transferred executables from the emulated environment. This article is missing some really important information - talking about "alleged" false flags without bothering to verify whether the dev actually shipped malware. I'd argue that's the most important fact about the whole situation and the article doesn't resolve it either way, even though it's a matter of fact and easy to verify.
The thing is, it wasn't a false positive. It was a virus in the testd3d.exe file that could spread to other files within a container and then to a PC if you transferred anything like save files. Bruno wasn't being attacked, he was called out for ignoring the problem for months and closing all Github issues just saying "false positive", then finally fixing it and straight away he paused development. All he had to do was to not ignore the Github pull requests and actually remove the virus infected file that almost certainly was there accidentally.
In late April 2025, the developer behind Winlator, BrunoSX, announced a sudden pause in development. There was no mention of when the dev would be back, but now, the official GitHub page has been updated, hinting at the return of BrunoSX.
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