Fw: Microsoft App Assure | KDE e.V. compatibility with Windows on Arm | CRM:01390020047

Fri Nov 14 21:10:04 GMT 2025

Hi Marisa,

Thank you for your patience, some of the delay was so that some of us 
could discuss the request.  Emails like this to the KDE e.V. are 
infrequent. And even this response is not speaking for the e.V., I just 
volunteered to make sure your email and followup received a reply.

While the KDE e.V. provides support to the developers in the KDE 
community that create some of the apps published on the Microsoft Store, 
including Okular, Filelight, and KStars, it does not exert the level of 
control of development where support such as break-fix or escalation 
would make sense. KDE developers already support our users on a 
multitude of platforms, including ARM, so we have some familiarity with 
some of the general porting issues already. This desire to reach our 
users where they are, no matter the platform or OS, is one of the 
reasons many of our apps are available in the Microsoft Store for 
Windows users.

As we are a worldwide community who volunteer our time and effort into 
building this collection of software, the most useful types of 
engineering advice are typically those in forms that can be consumed at 
an individual developer's convenience, such as technical articles/blogs, 
reference documentation, sample code (appropriately licensed for open 
source usage), and even videos. This is especially true of advice that 
goes beyond generic best practices, such as if there are any Windows for 
Arm-specific differences with APIs, programming language object/type 
differences, and so on.

If this is the kind of thing App Assure provides, static code analysis 
to look for compatibility issues might also be helpful, but would be 
most helpful when provided to the specific application developers or 
mailing list rather than the KDE e.V.  Members of this list can help 
point you or others to specific mailing lists or project boards if you 
have suggestions for specific apps we publish on the Microsoft Store.

We are appreciative of offers to help, I just want to emphasize our 
model is closer to a good number of part-time developers than to a model 
where a couple of tech exchange meetings would take care of a majority 
of active developers.

As you mentioned in your first email being unsure of our compatibility 
with Windows for ARM, I also wanted to provide links to the relevant 
information:

* Documentation to our developers on how to package KDE apps for 
Microsoft Store is at 
https://develop.kde.org/docs/packaging/windows/microsoftstore/packaging/ 
which refers to artifacts from our automated CI/CD

* That CI/CD is primarily driven out of "KDE Craft" 
(https://invent.kde.org/packaging/craft-blueprints-kde/-/blob/master/.gitlab-ci.yml). 
Taking a look at that file, it appears we only package Windows apps for x86.

But this wouldn't be an official support policy as much as the limit of 
our "best effort" towards supporting Windows where its users are.  Build 
system resources permitting, I think we'd package for Windows ARM as 
well if the setup is not too difficult (and remains not too difficult, 
maintenance burden for a feature used by very few features is 
problematic). That would be a topic for our KDE Sysadmins (who are also 
volunteers from around the world).

If it's easier to digest in a discussion I'm happy to serve as a POC for 
a short call (and at least for the upcoming week can generally be 
available at or after 4pm U.S. Eastern Time).  If you just needed to 
ensure that someone reached out to KDE, you can consider that task 
accomplished, with our collective thanks.

Also, most of our software is built upon the Qt toolkit, so if no one 
has reached out to them, I would recommend doing so.  They do have a 
for-profit company you can engage with (see https://www.qt.io/), and any 
significant Qt issues with Windows for Arm will also be issues for 
KDE-based software unless they can be worked around.  They do at least 
support ARM with their latest release (see 
https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/windows.html though it does not support the 
Windows 11-specific ARM64EC).

Finally, even if we don't setup a call, if we do run into Arm-specific 
issues, would it be best to reach out to you/your team to get them resolved?

Thank you again for your proactive engagement.

Regards,

  - Michael Pyne

On 11/12/25 6:05 AM, Marisa Irimie (Lugera and Makler) wrote:
> Hello all,
> I wanted to follow up on my previous email regarding Windows on Arm 
> compatibility for KDE e.V. We’d like to ensure your applications run 
> smoothly on the latest Microsoft platforms, including Copilot+ PCs.
> As mentioned, App Assure provides no-cost engineering support such as:
>
>   * Technical workshops and best practices
>   * Code reviews and platform optimization
>   * Break-fix assistance and escalation to Microsoft engineers
>
> Would you be available for a 30-minute onboarding call to discuss the 
> next steps? Please share a time that works best for you.
> Looking forward to your response.
> Best regards,
>
> A close-up of a logo Description automatically generated
>
> Marisa Irimie
>
> App Assure Manager
>
> a-mirimie at microsoft.com <mailto:YourName at microsoft.com>
>
> App Assure <https://aka.ms/appassure> | *Microsoft FastTrack*
>
> App Compatibility and Product Integrations
>
> To learn how Microsoft respects your privacy, see ourPrivacy Statement 
> <https://aka.ms/MicrosoftPrivacyPage>.
>
> If you wish to stop receiving emails from this program, please 
>
> contact us at ACHelp at microsoft.com.
>
> Upcoming out of Office:
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Marisa Irimie (Lugera and Makler) <a-mirimie at microsoft.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 4, 2025 12:53 PM
> *To:* kde-devel at kde.org <kde-devel at kde.org>
> *Cc:* Fasttrack – App Assure <ftdaa at microsoft.com>
> *Subject:* Microsoft App Assure | KDE e.V. compatibility with Windows 
> on Arm | CRM:01390020047
>
> /***If you’re not the right contact, please forward this message to 
> the appropriate stakeholder and include them in the thread.***/
> Hello all,
> My name is Marisa Irimie, and I’m an App Assure Manager with 
> Microsoft’s FastTrack Center. My team* helps Microsoft customers and 
> ISVs* ensure application *compatibility *with the latest Microsoft 
> platforms, including *Windows on Arm and Copilot+ PCs.*
> We’d like to collaborate with you to prepare *KDE.e.V for Windows on 
> Arm.* I couldn’t find any compatibility details on the website, so I 
> wanted to reach out directly.
> App Assure offers no-cost engineering support, including:
>
>  *
>     Technical workshops and best practices
>  *
>     Code reviews and platform optimization
>  *
>     Break-fix assistance and escalation to Microsoft engineers
>
> I’d be happy to schedule a 30-minute onboarding call next week to get 
> started. Please let me know your availability.
> Best regards,
> Marisa Irimie
>
>
> A close-up of a logo Description automatically generated
>
> Marisa Irimie
>
> App Assure Manager
>
> a-mirimie at microsoft.com <mailto:YourName at microsoft.com>
>
> App Assure <https://aka.ms/appassure> | *Microsoft FastTrack*
>
> App Compatibility and Product Integrations
>
> To learn how Microsoft respects your privacy, see ourPrivacy Statement 
> <https://aka.ms/MicrosoftPrivacyPage>.
>
> If you wish to stop receiving emails from this program, please 
>
> contact us at ACHelp at microsoft.com <mailto:ACHelp at microsoft.com>.
>
> Upcoming out of Office:
>
>
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