While newly minted Windows head Steven Sinofsky continues to play his cards close to his chest, we're seeing signs that Microsoft is rethinking its monolithic approach to not only the mass-market Windows operating system but the entire family of Windows products from servers down to CE-based embedded devices. First up is a streamlined microkernel codenamed MinWin, around which a re-engineered Windows line will be built. Described as 'the Windows 7 source-code base', in reference to the successor to Windows Vista which is slated for a 2010 release, MinWin strips back the current NT-based kernel to the barest of bare metal. Ars Technica has more, including a one hour video presentation [.wmv] about MinWin. Sassy quote of the day by Microsoft kernel engineer Eric Traut: "A lot of people think of Windows as this really large bloated operating system, and that may be a fair characterisation, I have to admit." My take: Maybe this will be closer to reality after all?
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Member since:2005-07-24
Bloggers are *always* going on about where think they guessed something right in a previous blog entry. The problem is that his (and hence your) claims don't align at all with what Eric Traut of Microsoft, the man who actually knows (as opposed to guessing and blogging about it), said about MinWin. MinWin is, indeed, something new. And has not been used in a product yet. It is a completely new kernel intended to be used at the core of Windows 7. Like I say, Windows 7 looks like the biggest overhaul since NT.
And you know what? I, a long-time, dyed in the wool, card carrying Microsoft detractor and Linux advocate, am actually a little excited about that efficient little core he was showing off. I get the impression that they've learned from the Vista development cycle, taken a page out of the *nix play book, and are taking a step in the right direction.
Member since:2006-01-02
Member since:2005-07-06
It's Paul Thurrot, not just any old blogger. Yes, he is wrong on occasion, but not in this case. Traut got facts about Windows history wrong.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071019/eric-talk-demo-windows-7-...
It's not as if he couldn't have also screwed up the history of MinWin as well. He hasn't always been part of the kernel team. He came in after MS acquired VPC et al. If you actually read the links at the bottom of that blog post, you'd see that the comments on MinWin were sourced from Microsoft and documented during "Longhorn's" development.
If MinWin did not exist at that time, explain the existance of Paul's articles. Also explain Microsoft documents on their website stating that MinWin is part of the parent partition above the hypervisor in Server 2008.
You can choose not to believe it. You can even choose to believe that Seven won't be based on Vista. In either case, it's an incorrect assumption.
Edited 2007-10-23 04:12
Member since:
2005-07-06
Read the bottom of the post at that link. It points to 3 articles about "Longhorn"/Vista and how they are built atop MinWin.
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