Upgrading Windows on ARM64 to a tier 2 platform

[StefanStojanovic]

Official support for ARM64 Windows is something many people have been looking forward to for years. We recently added test machines to Jenkins, and tests are being run for every PR. We would like to move forward and move ARM64 Windows to tier 2.

@nodejs/build if this PR is approved, @joaocgreis and I will add arm64 to the release Jenkins to start producing releases.

This should land on v19. Node v18 and prior versions have failing tests.

cc @nodejs/tsc @nodejs/platform-windows @nodejs/platform-windows-arm

Refs: nodejs/build#3046
Refs: nodejs/build#2540
Fixes: #25998

[pbo-linaro]

+1, this would be great to see windows-arm64 supported in NodeJS!

[mcollina]

I'm +1. All things considered I would recommend we target v20.0.0.

[mcollina]

tagging @nodejs/releasers for visibility

[niyas-sait]

Great! Looking forward to the release

[sxa]

@StefanStojanovic Can you summarise what is now in place to support this in terms of infrastructure? I haven't seen any of the details other than hearing that you've added some extra machines (From Azure?) into the CI.
Has there been any additional capacity to the release CI to support this? (It may not be necessary...)

[StefanStojanovic]

@StefanStojanovic Can you summarise what is now in place to support this in terms of infrastructure? I haven't seen any of the details other than hearing that you've added some extra machines (From Azure?) into the CI.

Certainly, here is the list of things we've done so far regarding the infrastructure:

• Added 6 Azure Windows 11 ARM64 machines to the CI and connected them to the Tests portion of the node-test-commit-windows-fanned job.
• Enabled ARM64 tests by default for Node v19+ starting with https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-windows-fanned/54061/. Currently actively monitoring CI for potential issues.
• Enabled making ARM64 MSI as part of build for Node v19+ (starting with this commit), same as for x86 and x64.

Has there been any additional capacity to the release CI to support this? (It may not be necessary...)

ARM64 binaries are still cross-compiled from Windows x64, the same as before, so there are no additional machines for building neither in test nor in release CI.

[joaocgreis]

@mcollina we would certainly like to have this ready before Node v20! Do you mean that as well or do you see any reason why this shouldn't happen in v19?

[mcollina]

No specific reason! Go ahead for v19.

[mhdawson]

@nodejs/releasers FYI

[StefanStojanovic]

Is there something else I can do to help this move forward?

[StefanStojanovic]

@mcollina @richardlau @lpinca since I can neither start the CI (not sure it's needed for this change) nor land a PR, could someone of you move this forward?

[richardlau]

@mcollina @richardlau @lpinca since I can neither start the CI (not sure it's needed for this change) nor land a PR, could someone of you move this forward?

It isn't as it is a doc only change.

[nodejs-github-bot]

Landed in dad0b07

[StefanStojanovic]

Thank you everyone for helping push this across the finish line!

[pbo-linaro]

Awesome!

[StefanStojanovic]

@RafaelGSS I cannot add a notable-change label to this PR, Can you add it, please?

This is my suggestion for the notable-change text:

Official support for ARM64 Windows

Node.js now includes binaries for ARM64 Windows, allowing for native execution on the platform. The MSI, zip/7z packages, and executable are available from the Node.js download site along with all other platforms. The CI system was updated and all changes are now fully tested on ARM64 Windows, to prevent regressions and ensure compatibility.

ARM64 Windows was upgraded to tier 2 support by Stefan Stojanovic on #47233.

[github-actions]

The notable-change PRs with changes that should be highlighted in changelogs. label has been added by @RafaelGSS.

Please suggest a text for the release notes if you'd like to include a more detailed summary, then proceed to update the PR description with the text or a link to the notable change suggested text comment.