Use ARm64EC libraries for X64 support on ARM64 systems

[LeonarddeR]

Link to issue number:

Closes #18445

Summary of the issue:

On ARM64 systems. an emulation layer is used to support X64 software. However, Microsoft developed ARm64EC, an X64 compatible ABi that is X64 compatible while delivering almost native ARM64 performance.

Description of user facing changes:

Probably slightly better performance as soon as we're on X64 builds.

Description of developer facing changes:

None

Description of development approach:

• Build relevant libraries as ARM64EC. Use the ARM64EC path on ARM64 systems to load X64 dlls from.
• Install JAVA access bridge in source dir for the NVDA core arch. There's no need in bundling an x86 bridge with an x64 NVDA and vise versa, as it will never be used.

Testing strategy:

• Tested basic usage and working display model on an ARM64 vm with a x86 Python build of NVDA
• Tested basic usage and working display model on an ARM64 vm with a x64 Python build of NVDA

Known issues with pull request:

None

Code Review Checklist:

• Documentation:
  • Change log entry
  • User Documentation
  • Developer / Technical Documentation
  • Context sensitive help for GUI changes
• Testing:
  • Unit tests
  • System (end to end) tests
  • Manual testing
• UX of all users considered:
  • Speech
  • Braille
  • Low Vision
  • Different web browsers
  • Localization in other languages / culture than English
• API is compatible with existing add-ons.
• Security precautions taken.

[seanbudd]

Sorry - this got automatically closed when the base PR was merged. Feel free to open a new PR

[LeonarddeR]

@seanbudd Could you please temporarily restore the wip-buildX64 branch? Otherwise it will be very painful for me to rebase this. Restoring the branch will also allow me to reopen the pr and do a cleaner rebase in Github itself, preserving the pr.

[seanbudd]

@LeonarddeR - done

[LeonarddeR]

Thanks @seanbudd, feel free to remove it again.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR implements ARM64EC library support to improve performance on ARM64 systems by using native ARM64EC libraries instead of emulated x64 libraries when running x64 builds of NVDA on ARM64 Windows.

• Adds ARM64EC build target and library path configuration
• Updates library path resolution to use ARM64EC libraries on ARM64 systems for x64 builds
• Simplifies Java Access Bridge installation to copy the appropriate architecture-specific DLL directly to the source directory

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
user_docs/en/changes.md	Documents performance improvements and ARM64EC library implementation
source/setup.py	Adds ARM64EC library path to installer manifest
source/NVDAState.py	Updates library path resolution to use ARM64EC on ARM64 systems
source/NVDAHelper/init.py	Fixes remote loader path for ARM64 systems
source/JABHandler.py	Simplifies Java Access Bridge DLL loading
sconstruct	Adds ARM64EC build environment and configuration
nvdaHelper/uwp/sconscript	Extracts UWP redistributable logic to separate script
nvdaHelper/localWin10/sconscript	Removes duplicated UWP redistributable code
nvdaHelper/javaAccessBridge/sconscript	Adds Java Access Bridge DLL installation logic
nvdaHelper/archBuild_sconscript	Implements ARM64EC build support and updates architecture detection

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