SnapDragon ARM Architecture on Surface Tablets (2025 Onwards)

After some investigating, the route cause of SQL being unable to be installed is due to the new SNAPDRAGON processors being implemented in the new Surface PRO 11 tablets.

This is because SNAPDRAGON CPU's are mobile processors built on an ARM architecture. ARM will cache opened background applications and processes not currently is use to preserve battery life and reduce performance intensity.

The drawbacks of this is that in our use case, SQL is a process that runs in the background and is continually referenced for data being inserted or extracted from the database tables when SkyVisitor is used.

We are able to bypass the limitation by running a Powershell Script which allows SQL 2019 to be installed on ARM architecture.

After installing SQL 2019, we were able to successfully install SkyTouch and use the application as normal. The singular drawback being that the application would take ~20 minutes to open when selected. The reason for this is yet unknown.

Going forward, it is advised we look to only supply the Surface PRO 11 tablets equipped with the INTEL processors installed.