Windows 10 Cloud hacked to run Win32 programs

[Batu69]

That did not take long! Windows 10 Cloud has not been revealed officially yet, but someone managed to hack the operating system already to run legacy Win32 programs on it.

 

Windows 10 Cloud leaked earlier this month, and first impressions revealed that it looked like a revival of Microsoft's -- failed -- Windows RT operating system.

Windows RT was released alongside Windows 8 as a low cost solution. Microsoft's marketing back then did a bad job at highlighting to customers that Windows RT would not run Win32 programs-

 

Windows 10 Cloud looked to be in the same boat initially when the first ISO of it leaked on the Internet. It was revealed then however that users can upgrade the operating system to Windows 10 Pro, and that Windows 10 Cloud may be free.

 

via Longhorn

Note: Microsoft has not confirmed any of this yet. It is possible that things may change along the way.

The leaked version of Windows 10 Cloud supports Windows Store apps and legacy Win32 programs that Microsoft whitelisted. Any Win32 program not on that list, and there are several that ship with Windows 10 Cloud that don't, won't run by default but will throw an error message instead:

The app you're trying to install isn't designed for Windows Cloud. Windows Cloud helps protect your PC by running on Windows Store apps.

Still want to install the app? See How.

The last sentence of the notification that users see when they try to run programs that are not whitelisted provides them with an option to upgrade the operating system to Windows 10 Pro.

 

This highlights one of the major difference to Windows RT, which did not ship with such an option. The upgrade option, and the fact that Windows 10 Cloud runs on x86 processors indicated strongly that Microsoft must have implemented a software restriction that prevents legacy Win32 programs from running on the operating system.

 

Jürgen Born suspects that Device Guard is used in Windows 10 Cloud to allow or block applications and programs based on signatures.

A Twitter user by the name of Longhorn posted a screenshot yesterday that showed Google Chrome and the Desktop App Converter running on a Windows 10 Cloud machine.

 

He managed to hack the restrictions of Windows 10 Cloud to run Google Chrome and the Desktop App Converter on a Windows 10 Cloud device.

 

The user did not reveal how it was done.

 

Information about the protection and how to circumvent it were published on the user's blog.

At the end, Windows Cloud is nothing more or less than a Professional variant with UMCI enforced.

At the end, Windows Cloud is nothing more or less than a Professional variant with UMCI enforced.

As such, its compatibility with existing Windows software* is only and solely prevented by having UMCI enabled and active.

While command, powershell, regedit and other core Windows features that give users control over the operating system are blocked, Linux Bash is not apparently.

 

This allowed him to enable test signing of programs, and run a handful of other commands to get the legacy Win32 programs to run on Windows 10 Cloud

Provided that the screenshot is not fake, it shows that the built-in protection is not as protective as Microsoft would hope it to be. Microsoft has not announced Windows Cloud officially yet. Considering that it is still in development, it can be that Bash support will be dropped in future builds.

 

Since the methods used to get Chrome and the Desktop App Converter to run were not revealed, we don't know how complex of an operation the hack is.

 

Article source

[steven36]

it has a place to switch on windows 32 apps anyway  just Microsoft has  them turned off it was reported by Digital Trends  in the build everyone has ..it  would not be the 1st time in a insider build  they  had stuff turned off and turned it on in a latter build they done this with RS 1 ..So its too early too tell.the coming builds  will tell us more . if they removed them they would be no way to hack it too run it just means there there but turned  off.  On Linux  you can install  Wine and run some win 32 programs or a VM  with windows and run most all of them and  they have Linux  bash on windows 10 and you can install Linux on there cloud platform.

 

For all we know Windows Cloud is just a code name and they will  change its name .. Once they announce it in the spring we will know what they plain to do with this version, there not stupid enough too turn everyone win 32 apps off yet . if this ever happens it will be after the other windows Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 run out of updates most likey because people would start installing old windows back. I told everyone this could happen a year and a half ago .

 

The problem  is for example Apple IOS and Mac   they have good apps for there locked down platforms and there's a big problem now with devs making unsafe apps for ioS    and the new mac os is as bad as windows  10 about privacy . But still Microsoft has no good apps in there store really  i remove all the default modern ones when i install Windows 10  Also you need a Microsoft account to install the ones in the store.too much hassle for me and this is even without talking about other factors  like privacy concerns with them selling you're data with those apps..

 

if they was like Linux  were they had good apps in there update manger it would be different but they dont . on Ubuntu  there's 3 or 4  different ways too install apps and Distros based on Arch there's different ways and its a  sandboxed platform..  lets hope they become more like Linux  and not more like Apple

 

Microsoft never got the DEV support they needed yet for its modern apps not many Devs are interested because it's too contorted  to work on the universal  platform.

[Sylence]

23 hours ago, steven36 said:

it has a place to switch on windows 32 apps anyway  just Microsoft has  them turned off it was reported by Digital Trends  in the build everyone has ..it  would not be the 1st time in a insider build  they  had stuff turned off and turned it on in a latter build they done this with RS 1 ..So its too early too tell.the coming builds  will tell us more . if they removed them they would be no way to hack it too run it just means there there but turned  off.  On Linux  you can install  Wine and run some win 32 programs or a VM  with windows and run most all of them and  they have Linux  bash on windows 10 and you can install Linux on there cloud platform.

 

For all we know Windows Cloud is just a code name and they will  change its name .. Once they announce it in the spring we will know what they plain to do with this version, there not stupid enough too turn everyone win 32 apps off yet . if this ever happens it will be after the other windows Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 run out of updates most likey because people would start installing old windows back. I told everyone this could happen a year and a half ago .

 

The problem  is for example Apple IOS and Mac   they have good apps for there locked down platforms and there's a big problem now with devs making unsafe apps for ioS    and the new mac os is as bad as windows  10 about privacy . But still Microsoft has no good apps in there store really  i remove all the default modern ones when i install Windows 10  Also you need a Microsoft account to install the ones in the store.too much hassle for me and this is even without talking about other factors  like privacy concerns with them selling you're data with those apps..

 

if they was like Linux  were they had good apps in there update manger it would be different but they dont . on Ubuntu  there's 3 or 4  different ways too install apps and Distros based on Arch there's different ways and its a  sandboxed platform..  lets hope they become more like Linux  and not more like Apple

 

Microsoft never got the DEV support they needed yet for its modern apps not many Devs are interested because it's too contorted  to work on the universal  platform.

 

Nobody cares what You think about Windows 10 apps. still haven't learned that?

 

Windows store got a lot of useful apps, as useful as apps in Android market.