The following is intended as a quick overview and not a precise detailed description
Snapdragon is a main processor designed by ARM and using RISC technology - although all of that is effectively just technical background!
However what is important is that it is a different type of processor to the "classic" processors designed by Intel (x86) and AMD that have been used with Windows for many many years.
Snapdragon uses a different set of instructions and they work in a different way (RISC) than those Intel processors. Without extra facilities Snapdragon processor do not understand classic Windows or the programs written for those Intel processors.
Snapdragon is the family name for a number of versions of the processor - some are far better than the earlier versions
Microsoft have created special versions of Windows specifically for Snapdragon (and similar ARM processors). Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 versions have been produced with the later considered to be far better especially on newer hardware.
There are now a range of Windows based machines available using the Snapdragon processor and this special Windows version.
It is not important here whether the Snapdragon versions are better although there are some advantages and some disadvantages. At the time of writing Snapdragon machines tended to have better battery life but were not in general faster and were more expensive for similar specs.
Please do not accept salesperson's claims that Windows for ARM/Snapdragon can run all Windows programs or use all devices.
Many general programs will work or have an ARM specific version but many specialist programs will not check with the specific publisher
Included in the special version of Windows is an emulator that tries to interpret Intel instructions.
Microsoft have tried very hard to make this work well however this is not a simple task and there are limitations. Initially there were a fair number of limitations and the emulation was slow. Steadily things have improved but there are still some problems especially device drivers.
Device Drivers work at a "low level" and closely with the operating system and machine so they have to be rewritten to work on Snapdragon they can not be emulated.
So devices that do not specifically mention support for Windows ARM / Snapdragon almost certainly will not work. There are "inbuilt" drivers within Windows for some printers etc but these may not support a particular printers specific features.
*** SuperView currently does not work on Snapdragon ***
This is because the device driver for the dongle is written by another company (that makes the dongles) and currently they have no plans to rewrite the driver to suit Snapdragon.
Even if that was not a problem we have no tested our software on a snapdragon based machine and there may well be other problems such as the graphics support is not identical and the emulator even if it works for SuperView may be slow or have odd quirks.
At this time we do not intend to develop a version of SuperView 25 for Snapdragon
Snapdragon is a particular companies design. There are other ARM processors that can be used like Microsoft's SQ. There are numerous other ARM designs for example some of Apple's tablets use an ARM processor that has been designed by Apple but that does not mean they can run Wiindows for ARM
ARM is the company that actual designs these processors sometimes combined with specific features designed by another company e.g. Microsoft
RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) essentially uses a small number of fast instructions whilst Intel's processors have a complex instruction set that can do some tasks with a few instructions but tend to run hotter and use more power.