Windows 10 phones and tiny tablets won't get the desktop

Prognostications about Microsoft killing the desktop in Windows 10 are coming true—but only for the smallest of tablets.

New tablets with screens smaller than 8 inches will not ship with a classic desktop, and won’t be able to run legacy Win32 (read: desktop) applications according to Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group. These devices will instead run something very similar to the phone version of Windows 10 that Microsoft showed off last week.

If you already have a 7-inch Windows tablet like Toshiba’s Encore Mini, don’t panic; Belfiore clarified on Twitter that existing tablets will retain their desktop functionality. They’ll also support the new Continuum feature that switches to a mouse-and-keyboard interface when you dock the tablet with a desktop monitor.

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