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Windows 8 will just be another evolution of Windows 7, as it was an evolution of Windows Vista, which is just an evolution of Windows XP, which is just the combination of the Windows 9x GUI-look on top of the Windows NT core, evolved from Windows 2K, and, originally, from Windows NT 4.0, and 3.5 before it.

They aren't going to chuck all the code from Windows 7, start from scratch, and create an entirely new Windows OS. That's like saying that Ubuntu 11.04 is completely new, and not an evolution of Debian.

Think Midori. It is a research OS being brewed at Microsoft Lab and rumored to be successor to Windows 7 (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/goodbye-xp-hello-midori/1466). Nothing can be substantiated at the moment. All speculations...

A new file system does not mean a completely different operating system.

With any operating system there is always stuff that changes,but a lot remains the same. Determining when to call something a completely new operating system vs jsut a new version of an operating system is sometimes difficult to do, but I don't think Windows 8 will have enough differences to qualify as "completely new". Now if its really just midori ( kernel written in C#) with a compatibility api for legacy win32 stuff, that would be a "completely new" operating system. ANd there has been some speculation that something of that calibre is/or has been considered.

That has to be the worlds crappiest article; in one paragraph the author says: "Windows 8 will see a radical rehaul of the file system" then the next one the author says: "One job posting looks for someone to help program the next generation of Windows’ Distributed File System Replication storage technology, with “new critical features… including cluster support and support for one way replication” and performance improvements a big plus."

How on earth does the author leap from a job advertisement specialising in clustering file system and then conclude that there is a 'radical overhaul' for the file system for Windows 8? Pie in the sky circle jerks maybe fun but I'd sooner read an article with real substance instead of pie in the sky promises.

Windows 8 will not be a revolution, it will be an evolution. The foundations are there it is a matter of Microsoft making the changes to take advantage of them.

Agreed. Evolution. But it should be good evolution. No I don't have proof of that, but it just makes good business sense at this point... use what you have that is obviously working well for them at the moment. They can continue to work on "midori" or whatever else might be in the oven in the background using fewer resources until the time comes when they really NEED to out it.

The Filesystem is not related to the kernel, or any other part of Windows, it is just a subsystem, NT could work with NTFS, FAT, or if anybody wanted too, it could use ext3, XFS, really anything.

Does Linux change to some other OS depending on what filesystem it is currently booting with? No it does not. FreeBSD does not change to Solaris just because you are using ZFS.

To be correct yes Linux does sometimes has to be changed due to what file-system it is booting on. Like Linux Secuirty Module SELinux require particular features from the file-system to operate. This does give a OS that behaves differently. Also booting a real-time Linux does have particular requirements in file-systems you can and cannot use.

Yes you stay in the same family but the Distributions cannot always remain the same on different file-systems to the point in some cases not being installable on particular file-systems as root file-system.

Also subsystem has a very particular meaning when talking about NT nothing related to file-system. File-system in NT an "Installable File System" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Installable_File_System

Linux is simpler to boot on a alien filesystem than windows.

Linux has a kernel image and intrd that are loaded by the bootloader this does not have to be the on the filesystem that the OS will boot into.

Lets move over to NT. The bootloader of NT style OS's reads the Registry to work out what drivers to load with the kernel. Issue here bootloader must be able to read the filesystem the OS is on. So Windows boot loaders have a file-system driver independent to the "installable File System".

Anybody cannot use anything with NT. They have to be able to rewrite the bootloader and make a IFS. Where with Linux person only has make Filesystem driver for Linux.

Now nasty part with windows replacing the bootloader you could get on the wrong side of a update. So really MS is fully in-charge of what File-systems you can boot windows on.

Claim that Filesystem is not related to kernel or any other part of Windows is invalid. Its related to the bootloader that loads the kernel that also loads the drivers the OS needs to boot.

Linux can claim that File-system is not related to kernel. Since file-system driver can be bundled into initrd and loaded by any Linux supporting boot loader for starting up on any file-system you like. But then you have to remember the other points above. That not all Linux Distributions will operate after that due to the limitations of the file-system drivers.

Yes Linux distributions can be broken down into groups by secuirty design. So Linux is not uniform system. Talking about it as one item is foolishness.

FreeBSD is a Distribution from the BSD classes of OS's. Yes there is more than one in the BSD class of OS's and some of those OS's have file system limitations. Solaris again is a Distribution from the Solaris class of OS's but at this stage Solaris has not branched to having a file-system support differences in its class. Single distributions compared to Multi is really a mistake.

Did you just say that the filesystem has nothing to do with the kernel?