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update on smokeball on Arm Windows

  • 8 June 2024
  • 6 replies
  • 91 views

Hi is there an update on how smokeball is expected to run under emulation on the new copilot+ PC'S ro be released on 18th June 2024? Is there any workarounds if it's not running eg via the Web?

6 replies

Ben
Userlevel 6

Thanks for waiting for my reply on this one. I’ve done some digging and the short answer is: 

  • It should run under emulation, but we don’t officially support it.
  • ARM compatibility is complicated. 
  • Let me know what features you’re looking for workarounds for and I’ll go digging for you. 


The longer answer - if you’re interested: 

We don’t officially support ARM processors, which will include the Snapdragon chipset used in Copilot+ PCs. It's not specifically about the Copilot functionality but more about the ARM chip architecture that these PC’s run on.

The Copilot onboard AI chip shouldn’t make compatibility better or worse and functions like Recall shouldn’t harm functionality of our time tracking features etc.

Testing is the only way to offer any kind of guarantee, we cannot test yet, so I can’t offer any guarantee. I wish I could!  

To officially support it, we need to thoroughly test all the deep integrations Smokeball has across the various software and chipset layers within Windows systems. This takes time to do well, and we want to ensure we don't let you down by making a promise we can’t keep, even if the majority of our functions work and look like they will continue to work into the future. 

Microsoft is doing significant work to improve cross-compatibility of software like ours with different frameworks and chip-sets. This is making it easier for us write code that runs everywhere rather than the very deep customisation and testing we often have to do at the moment.

If you have particular mission critical features in mind, I can check in about workarounds and web based solutions that we either have live now or are actively developing. Let me know and I’ll go digging for you. 

D

Hi I managed to answer my own question with a definite YES. I managed to install Smokeball (Triconvey subset) on a Surface pro 11 32gb Copilot+ PC and so far it works well. Billing and Accounting works and picked up all of the right balances & transactions. Speed is good. Excellent.

Ben
Userlevel 6

I really appreciate the update @Davidleamey! If you end up going with this PC as your daily driver for Smokeball then please flag any oddities that pop up for you as you go deeper into our features.

I’ll make sure they get in front of the team here to take a look at. 

L

David,

I’m looking at upgrading my laptop finally. I love what I see in Surface Pro 11. What did you come from? I’m coming from a 16GB Surface Laptop 3. I was wondering if I could stick with 16GB or if I need to select the 32GB? Do you find it really is keeping up on the ARM, or would you recommend looking at the Surface Studio Laptop 2? Appreciate it!

Louis

A

Hi I managed to answer my own question with a definite YES. I managed to install Smokeball (Triconvey subset) on a Surface pro 11 32gb Copilot+ PC and so far it works well. Billing and Accounting works and picked up all of the right balances & transactions. Speed is good. Excellent.

 

Hi @Davidleamey ,

Are you able to advise whether the smokeball plugins with Outlook and Word work? I feel like I saw @Ben say in another thread that he wasn’t entirely sure if they worked or not and that’s making me hold off.

L

Hi I managed to answer my own question with a definite YES. I managed to install Smokeball (Triconvey subset) on a Surface pro 11 32gb Copilot+ PC and so far it works well. Billing and Accounting works and picked up all of the right balances & transactions. Speed is good. Excellent.

 

Hi @Davidleamey ,

Are you able to advise whether the smokeball plugins with Outlook and Word work? I feel like I saw @Ben say in another thread that he wasn’t entirely sure if they worked or not and that’s making me hold off.

Hey Alex, the plugins work. The only issue I ran into was that Print to Smokeball is not an option in any application. Also, as of right now, no scanner is compatible with the ARM. So I ended up ditching it for now and returned to a traditional Intel because the lack of compatibility with my ScanSnap coupled with the inability to Print to Smokeball just became too burdensome. But it looks like ARM is the future so I think everyone will get there eventually. 

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