Obsidian.1.1.9-arm64.exe installer appears to actually be Intel x64

Steps to reproduce

In a browser, navigate to Download - Obsidian and click the link marked “ARM 64-bit installer (1.1.9)” to download a file named Obsidian.1.1.9-arm64.exe with a SHA256 hash (as computed by Powershell Get-FIlehash) D5966C2294286A4ECAB99CBC168564F0E55F07E13456AA7F3B2C156F5E7D0B17.

On a Windows on ARM installation (I am using Windows 11 Home 22H2) open the installer’s file properties, then navigate to the Compatibility tab. Near the bottom of the Compatibility tab, observe that the “Windows on ARM - Change emulation settings” section is not disabled, indicating the installer file is not a native ARM binary.

Perform an installation, then navigate to the installation folder, and using the procedure above, observe Obsidian.exe is not a native ARM binary. Obsidian.exe SHA256 hash: 24163A100E6D58A48306AF5258F9B11EFD65EA723160CB29ED8C3EEFA3745377

Launch Obsidian and open task manager. In the details tab of the task manager, review the Architecture column of the running processes and observe that the Obsidian.exe is reported as x64, and not ARM or ARM64.

Expected result

Expected to download and install Windows ARM-native binaries.

Actual result

Appear to have downloaded and installed Windows x64 Intel binaries.

Environment

  • Operating system: Windows 11 Home ARM64 22H2
  • Debug info:
    SYSTEM INFO:
    Obsidian version: v1.1.9
    Installer version: v1.1.9
    Operating system: Windows 10 Home 10.0.22621
    Login status: not logged in
    Insider build toggle: off
    Live preview: on
    Legacy editor: off
    Base theme: adapt to system
    Community theme: none
    Snippets enabled: 0
    Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none


Additional information

The Windows On ARM emulation settings referenced above appear only on ARM versions of Windows.

Performance and power consumption should be lower for ARM native applications than emulated applications. Obsidian does appear to run under Windows 11 x64 emulation. Windows 10 cannot emulate x64 so ARM users would need to install the 32-bit Intel version.

I don’t think I’d have noticed the difference if I hadn’t looked.

The hash of the Windows x64 version is different than the hash of the version marked as ARM64, but the installer file sizes are very similar.

 Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
 ----                 -------------         ------ ----
 -a---          12/30/2022  6:24 PM       68627128 Obsidian.1.1.9-32.exe
 -a---          12/30/2022  5:58 PM       72690776 Obsidian.1.1.9-arm64.exe
 -a---          12/30/2022  6:23 PM       72690816 Obsidian.1.1.9.exe

1 Like

Is this true for older versions of Obsidian?

let me know if the next public release fixes the problem (download and reinstall).

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