Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd Oct 2007 09:15 UTC, submitted by Flatland_Spider
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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RE[7]: compatibility?
by PlatformAgnostic on Tue 23rd Oct 2007 03:25
in reply to "RE[6]: compatibility?"
Member since:2006-01-02
If you watch the talk (which apparently no one who writes these articles and blurbs actually has), Traut mentions nothing about microkernels. It's someone else's imagination.
NT is not a microkernel, but it is unique in that it is explicitly designed to display different "personalities" to user-mode.
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Member since:
2005-07-24
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If that's true, someone's playing games with the word "microkernel" again. You can't go from the kernel that Windows uses now to a microkernel and call the change trivial.