We have learnt quite a lot about Windows 7 this week, and one of the things was that Windows 7 would not get a new kernel. The call for a new kernel has been made a few times on the internet, but anyone with a bit more insight into Windows' kernel knows that there is absolutely no need to write a new kernel for Windows - the problems with Windows lie in userland, not kernelland. While the authenticity of the Shipping Seven blog is not undisputed, the blogger makes some very excellent points regarding the kernel matter.I have written numerous times that there is nothing wrong with the Windows NT kernel currently powering about 90% of the world's desktops. It provides advanced security features, it's extremely stable, very portable, and supports just about any piece of hardware in the x86 desktop and server markets. "In conclusion, scrapping Windows NT would be a pointless exercise. It is a mature, stable, and, yes, secure system by design." I wrote a year ago, "Do not make the mistake of thinking that simply because Microsoft refused to enforce proper security policies from the get-go, that NT is an insecure system by design."
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reading the "i won't buy windows 7 unless it has this" thread, it seems that many don't have a clue as to what it is. same goes for WinFS (not a filing system.. in fact it relied on NTFS). i get the feeling that many of the posts in there are just people reposting what they read in earlier posts
Your comment shows how little people know about the kernel and what it does.
The end user doesn't ever interact with the kernel. Ever. There's absolutely no need to change the kernel, I agree, but the point is that the user wouldn't ever be 'confused' by it, because they can't see it.
Pardon - the kernel doesn't matter; what you're talking about is the interface, which has nothing what so ever to do with the kernel.
Pardon - the kernel doesn't matter; what you're talking about is the interface, which has nothing what so ever to do with the kernel.
I Think that was his point... That you won't notice a difference that would amount to confusion from a Kernel change.
It might be in Windows 8 or 9, or more likely, the concepts learned from the experimentation might end up in those OS's, but that's all it really is - an experiment.
It might be in Windows 8 or 9, or more likely, the concepts learned from the experimentation might end up in those OS's, but that's all it really is - an experiment.
How do you not get that MinWin = Vista kernel with many features removed, aka it is a striped down Vista kernel. Its not hard to wrap your head around. Want minWin? vLite Vista and pull out EVERYTHING. Then you have your MinWin. The only difference is that MS took that operation to the extreme.
It might be in Windows 8 or 9, or more likely, the concepts learned from the experimentation might end up in those OS's, but that's all it really is - an experiment.
How do you not get that MinWin = Vista kernel with many features removed, aka it is a striped down Vista kernel. Its not hard to wrap your head around. Want minWin? vLite Vista and pull out EVERYTHING. Then you have your MinWin. The only difference is that MS took that operation to the extreme.
Did you even read what I said beyond the first sentence? Here, let me repeat it for you:
I don't really know what your problem is (apart from your inability to read), but I said it was a stripped down version of the Vista/Server 2008 Kernel.
But it's not as simple as vliting everything away from Vista, the Kernel is an integral part of the OS, you can't chip bits out of it, the Kernel is a separate entity that ties the whole bloody thing together. All the bits vLite can remove - applications, .dlls, various other files - have -NOTHING- to do with the Kernel.
Naturally, it has to deal with all sorts of legacy crap and such - strip THAT out, remove all the ring 0 **** and put it into user mode and THERE you have the REAL "MinWin".
It might be in Windows 8 or 9, or more likely, the concepts learned from the experimentation might end up in those OS's, but that's all it really is - an experiment.
How do you not get that MinWin = Vista kernel with many features removed, aka it is a striped down Vista kernel. Its not hard to wrap your head around. Want minWin? vLite Vista and pull out EVERYTHING. Then you have your MinWin. The only difference is that MS took that operation to the extreme.
afaik, vlite doesn't touch the kernel
It does exist and MS has publically demonstrated it...
Indeed... ive seen videos of it being shown microsoft did a presentation on it I believe.
It might be in Windows 8 or 9, or more likely, the concepts learned from the experimentation might end up in those OS's, but that's all it really is - an experiment.
VistaSP1/Server 2008 are NT 6.0 SP1, not 6.1. Windows "7" on the other hand, is NT 6.1 (according to the various leaked builds). I haven't seen any evidence that it will be revved to 7.0 other than the code name "7" which I think was chosen a bit prematurely by the Windows team.
Now, as for what is the kernel, and is MinWin a stripped down kernel? The NT kernel itself is basically just ntoskrnl.exe, hal.dll, and the various kernel drivers that ship with Windows. It's pretty much always been that way; you can't strip it down more than that. So I don't think it's correct to call MinWin a stripped-down NT kernel.
My guess is that it involves making the low-level usermode components that sit on top of the kernel (kernel32.dll, user32.dll, advapi32.dll etc) better architected. For example, take a look at advapi32.dll (home of the registry APIs, among many other low-level APIs) in Dependency Viewer, and you'll see that while it only depends on 7 DLLs itself, the hierarchy of all subsequent dependencies results in over 100 dependent DLLs, including shell and IE DLLs. That's a nightmare.
And I have to disagree with the whole "experimental project" notion -- this isn't something that's going on in Microsoft Research, or in Mark Russinovich's spare time. The Eric Traut video suggested that this is much more than an "experiment," that it's an architectural change that they're making to Windows itself.
Last edited by noPCtoday on 31 May 2008 - 02:39
Singularity is a Microsoft research project. It is a managed operating system: The kernel, drivers, etc. are all written in Sing#, which is C# with extra stuff.
It was never related to Longhorn.
Singularity is a Microsoft research project. It is a managed operating system: The kernel, drivers, etc. are all written in Sing#, which is C# with extra stuff.
It was never related to Longhorn.
Yeah, I know about Singularity. but its not .net based. It is written in C#/Sing# but does not have .net framework stuff.
but yeah, you are probably right, I remembered incorrectly
Singularity is a Microsoft research project. It is a managed operating system: The kernel, drivers, etc. are all written in Sing#, which is C# with extra stuff.
It was never related to Longhorn.
You're both talking about two different things (sort of). XP was supposed to be "Windows .Net", then that got pushed back to Vista, then it seemed to Vanish all together.
I think the idea was that the OS itself would have .net built into it, so it could run .net apps natively, but Microsoft appears to have scrapped the idea.
Singularity is a different project all together, but it's easy to see why you'd mistake one for the other.
Incidentally, singularity is an experimental Operating System, rather akin to what "MinWin" is.
No, but components of the "OS" (i.e. control panel applets etc) was more .NET based IIRC. But the kernel wasn't.
Singularity is the only .NET-based OS from MS, so that's where that is coming into the picture. But again, unrelated to Longhorn.
It was scaled back a bit, but a lot of the original ideas are still there.
The "bloat" in Vista is not the slow speed, or the convoluted and unintuitive UI. It's the legacy code cruft that has been accumulating since Windows 3.1. Microsoft's unwillingness to let go of an insecure and antiquated application layer is what is holding back Windows from being a sensible operating system.
Also possibly the general lack of UI consistency across applications (even Microsoft's own! ).
I've already found my MinWin. It's called Ubuntu Linux.
In the end it's pretty much the same move, MS can make as many new APIs to replace the old ones as you'd like, but try and get all the software developers to switch off of the old APIs first, and then we can talk about legacy code support.
And just totally dropping Win32 support would really **** users and devs off. Due to size you can't just pull something like that from one version to another. MS has things in place, but the change will happen little by little. It'll get a boost from future hyperviser tech that will help run older legacy apps without the user knowing they're not running native. But until we get that, Windows will ship with the old and new APIs.
The "bloat" in Vista is not the slow speed, or the convoluted and unintuitive UI. It's the legacy code cruft that has been accumulating since Windows 3.1. Microsoft's unwillingness to let go of an insecure and antiquated application layer is what is holding back Windows from being a sensible operating system.
Also possibly the general lack of UI consistency across applications (even Microsoft's own! ).
I've already found my MinWin. It's called Ubuntu Linux.
You also forgot to add all the unnecessary DRM bull they added in that slows down your system too
In the end it's pretty much the same move, MS can make as many new APIs to replace the old ones as you'd like, but try and get all the software developers to switch off of the old APIs first, and then we can talk about legacy code support.
And just totally dropping Win32 support would really **** users and devs off. Due to size you can't just pull something like that from one version to another. MS has things in place, but the change will happen little by little. It'll get a boost from future hyperviser tech that will help run older legacy apps without the user knowing they're not running native. But until we get that, Windows will ship with the old and new APIs.
Easy "solution" to the "problem" and this should have been done by now, FORCE the new API on all programmers, eliminate completely ALL "backwards" compatibility and you'll have a lighter OS
You want some ancient crap running still? Don't upgrade your OS, want security fixes? Update your apps and get a new OS, don't hold back everyone else because you're too lazy/cheap to get new hardware, reprogram your apps.
Do you have benchmarks/tests/documentation that shows that it slows down your system? Because the only thing I've ever seen that claims that was a piece of guess work with no references at best.
In the end it's pretty much the same move, MS can make as many new APIs to replace the old ones as you'd like, but try and get all the software developers to switch off of the old APIs first, and then we can talk about legacy code support.
And just totally dropping Win32 support would really **** users and devs off. Due to size you can't just pull something like that from one version to another. MS has things in place, but the change will happen little by little. It'll get a boost from future hyperviser tech that will help run older legacy apps without the user knowing they're not running native. But until we get that, Windows will ship with the old and new APIs.
Easy "solution" to the "problem" and this should have been done by now, FORCE the new API on all programmers, eliminate completely ALL "backwards" compatibility and you'll have a lighter OS
You want some ancient crap running still? Don't upgrade your OS, want security fixes? Update your apps and get a new OS, don't hold back everyone else because you're too lazy/cheap to get new hardware, reprogram your apps.
You're being silly, sad to say. You can't FORCE such a big change down users throwts without a good way to run older apps. Using future hyperviser tech is the best way to do it but we're not there yet. Just think about it for a second, if MS totally cuts the old APIs out and dumps backwwards compatibility they'll have an OS that NO ONE WILL BUY! Hell they make one small change that breaks a few apps and everyone goes nuts about it. Look at what happend with SP2 for XP. You're not being realistic at all with your way of thinking, plus it doesn't make business sense either.
Last edited by Foub on 31 May 2008 - 09:36
You seriously begin to bore us with your repetitiveness .
Wow, that is /such/ a cool name. I wish I'd thought of it.
What is Vista then? Win 95 Fifth Edition?
Time to prine your feathers.
What is Vista then? Win 95 Fifth Edition?
Its Windows ME II. It seems that Microsoft hardly ever listens to its user base where it counts......
What is Vista then? Win 95 Fifth Edition?
Its Windows ME II. It seems that Microsoft hardly ever listens to its user base where it counts......
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
+10.
+10.
+100, lol
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
No. You're an idiot for not understand why people relate it to Windows ME. No one is saying it's an upgrade of Windows ME. It's just a huge failure for many of the same reasons as Windows ME is.
And, again like they did with Windows ME, Microsoft more or less agrees. Hence offering to maintain support for Windows XP and already talking about how they're all about Windows 7 now. It's pretty damn close to how they responded when Windows ME flopped. The only difference is that they don't even need to come up with Windows XP.2 to tide over until 7 because XP is still a strong, well-supported, well-liked, and stable OS.
The tiny minority -- and yes, you're in that tiny minority, sorry to burst your bubble -- who think Vista is the bee's knees not withstanding.
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
No. You're an idiot for not understand why people relate it to Windows ME. No one is saying it's an upgrade of Windows ME. It's just a huge failure for many of the same reasons as Windows ME is.
And, again like they did with Windows ME, Microsoft more or less agrees. Hence offering to maintain support for Windows XP and already talking about how they're all about Windows 7 now. It's pretty damn close to how they responded when Windows ME flopped. The only difference is that they don't even need to come up with Windows XP.2 to tide over until 7 because XP is still a strong, well-supported, well-liked, and stable OS.
The tiny minority -- and yes, you're in that tiny minority, sorry to burst your bubble -- who think Vista is the bee's knees not withstanding.
I cant remember how many times people have been comparing XP with ME when it came out. Same thing goes to 2000 and win 97
Vista has a lot of work in it, people who say "its just XP+Aero" don't know what they're saying. The problems that Vista has, are problems Microsoft knew Vista would have, because the development schedule was rushed after the Longhorn Restart. Windows 7 in many ways is designed to 'complete the job' by building upon what's already in Vista but they didn't have the luxury of time to complete or refine. In many ways Vista is half-baked, and 'the baking needs to be finished', but otherwise its not bad at all and there is a lot of new stuff. It has as much improvements as XP had over 98 and as much as 98 had over 95. People get rightfully annoyed at the 'half-baked' stuff in the release, but "Vista sucks" is an exaggeration.
The last two paragraphs explains everything you ever will need to know about ME and Vista. And no, Vista is not another ME.
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
No. You're an idiot for not understand why people relate it to Windows ME. No one is saying it's an upgrade of Windows ME. It's just a huge failure for many of the same reasons as Windows ME is.
And, again like they did with Windows ME, Microsoft more or less agrees. Hence offering to maintain support for Windows XP and already talking about how they're all about Windows 7 now. It's pretty damn close to how they responded when Windows ME flopped. The only difference is that they don't even need to come up with Windows XP.2 to tide over until 7 because XP is still a strong, well-supported, well-liked, and stable OS.
The tiny minority -- and yes, you're in that tiny minority, sorry to burst your bubble -- who think Vista is the bee's knees not withstanding.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Windows 7 is going to be nothing more than Vista Second Edition.
Microsoft already stated that every 2 years they will be doing a minor upgrade then every three years they will create a major upgrade.
That means Windows 7 = Vista Second Edition.
I can already see the torrents of bloggers spouting off on topics they have absoulutely no clue about what-so-ever, bandwagon Vista fanboys will troll all the Windows 7 articles on this site and post links to aformentioned blog-pieces as "news", while those who have longer memories will simply roll thier eyes yet again.
Taking bets on what feature of 7 will be the most ragged on, i'm betting on the touch stuff currently.
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
No. You're an idiot for not understand why people relate it to Windows ME. No one is saying it's an upgrade of Windows ME. It's just a huge failure for many of the same reasons as Windows ME is.
And, again like they did with Windows ME, Microsoft more or less agrees. Hence offering to maintain support for Windows XP and already talking about how they're all about Windows 7 now. It's pretty damn close to how they responded when Windows ME flopped. The only difference is that they don't even need to come up with Windows XP.2 to tide over until 7 because XP is still a strong, well-supported, well-liked, and stable OS.
The tiny minority -- and yes, you're in that tiny minority, sorry to burst your bubble -- who think Vista is the bee's knees not withstanding.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Windows 7 is going to be nothing more than Vista Second Edition.
Microsoft already stated that every 2 years they will be doing a minor upgrade then every three years they will create a major upgrade.
That means Windows 7 = Vista Second Edition.
well win 98 is definately not win95 upgrade eh? you can say win98se or me is win98 second edition, since they do not have much change in their architecture. Win 7 as we see, so far, will have a lot of changes based on Vista.
Vista is nothing Like ME. You are an idiot if you call it MEII and are being a troll. Go away.
No. You're an idiot for not understand why people relate it to Windows ME. No one is saying it's an upgrade of Windows ME. It's just a huge failure for many of the same reasons as Windows ME is.
And, again like they did with Windows ME, Microsoft more or less agrees. Hence offering to maintain support for Windows XP and already talking about how they're all about Windows 7 now. It's pretty damn close to how they responded when Windows ME flopped. The only difference is that they don't even need to come up with Windows XP.2 to tide over until 7 because XP is still a strong, well-supported, well-liked, and stable OS.
The tiny minority -- and yes, you're in that tiny minority, sorry to burst your bubble -- who think Vista is the bee's knees not withstanding.
Sorry to burst your bubble but Windows 7 is going to be nothing more than Vista Second Edition.
Microsoft already stated that every 2 years they will be doing a minor upgrade then every three years they will create a major upgrade.
That means Windows 7 = Vista Second Edition.
well win 98 is definately not win95 upgrade eh? you can say win98se or me is win98 second edition, since they do not have much change in their architecture. Win 7 as we see, so far, will have a lot of changes based on Vista.
While I agree with you, all i'm saying is that win 7 won't be a major upgrade in terms of going from XP to Vista.
Think of it more as going from 98 to 98se, no major changes to the UI or kernel, just bug fixes, interface tweaks (display settings within personalisation) and additions to functionality.
Last edited by Jugalator on 31 May 2008 - 11:47
So essentially Safe Mode Extreme?
No with Minwin they striped it down even more, so there is no GUI and the only real thing of use was a very basic web server IIRC
I don't know about the rest of you, but I appreciate having some services running like "Plug and Play Hardware", "Audio" and "GUI". Running MinWin would be like running a copy of Linux from kernel.org. Want Bash? That's extra.
MinWin is pointless for a desktop computer, and I fully expect more results of the MinWin experiment to go into Windows CE than Windows 7. For the desktop, if Microsoft can pump up the efficiency of the *enormous* heap of code that runs on the kernel, and do something good about the increasingly complex UI, then that's good enough for me. I want a version of Windows that is absolutely inarguably *better* than Windows XP, and feel value in upgrading the masses of older computers I work with.
Look what the user reaction was to Vista and removing some legacy drivers? The whole world blew up, people would blame MS for lack of support from 3rd party drivers.
The Windows OS with 90% desktop penetration is about 1000 time more sophisticated then most people here can grasp. The only way it can go forward is by evolution and not revolution. You're damed if you do and damed if you don't when you control this much market share.
I'm sure those that claim that Vista is 'hard to use' have much better suggestions about UI's; I assume you all ahve years of experience in UI design. I'll personally stick to my crashless Vista x64 thank you.
Stuff that SHOULD have been common sense if it hadn't been for the fact that ignorant people or Linux cultists creep out of the woodwork and spew their crap all over the web.
tntomek, thanks for being a faint light of sense in the darkness that is the interwebs.
Stuff that SHOULD have been common sense if it hadn't been for the fact that ignorant people or Linux cultists creep out of the woodwork and spew their crap all over the web.
tntomek, thanks for being a faint light of sense in the darkness that is the interwebs.
I couldn't believe it either - a commonsense comment on this, rather than mouth frothing, code name chanting or spewing crap on issue one knows nothing about - which normally occurs on this site.
When ever I hear people bitch about Windows, I ask them, "Name a single operatin gsystem that supports the depth and bredth of hardware which Windows does AND has all as much software as Windows has for it". There is a defeaning silence everytime I ask that quesiton.
Agreed, by the time Windows 7 is out I’m sure all pc’s capable of running it will have a 64bit processor.
However from what I have read Windows 7 will be the last Windows OS to have X86 and X64 Editions.
Lots of people out there don't use their PCs as much as the people who visit this site and post.
For basic web surfing, email, watching video and playing audio, with some minor photo editing stuff, there is no need for 64bit, let alone more than 4GB of system memory.
It's the minority that will push 64bit, but it will stay a minority until there is a broader NEED for 64bit. And the first step is getting people to use more of their systems and see that they need more than 4GB to work with.
Agreed, by the time Windows 7 is out I’m sure all pc’s capable of running it will have a 64bit processor.
However from what I have read Windows 7 will be the last Windows OS to have X86 and X64 Editions.
Like the Mobile Core Duos Intel only released about 2 years ago?
Oh wait! Those were 32-bit....
Lots of people out there don't use their PCs as much as the people who visit this site and post.
For basic web surfing, email, watching video and playing audio, with some minor photo editing stuff, there is no need for 64bit, let alone more than 4GB of system memory.
It's the minority that will push 64bit, but it will stay a minority until there is a broader NEED for 64bit. And the first step is getting people to use more of their systems and see that they need more than 4GB to work with.
Excuse me, do you really think that OEM vendors choose components based on the minimum requirements for the customer? I switched on television last night and saw Dell pushing machines with 4 gigs of memory - you need to have a 64bit OS to address 64bits worth of memory - Windows 32bit can only address up to 3gigs currently.
This is the reality, whether the customer needs it or not is immaterial; OEM's are pushing bigger more powerful machines, heck, by Windows 7 roles around, a 4gig machine will be a common sight.
Last edited by kaiwai on 01 Jun 2008 - 02:34
Lots of people out there don't use their PCs as much as the people who visit this site and post.
For basic web surfing, email, watching video and playing audio, with some minor photo editing stuff, there is no need for 64bit, let alone more than 4GB of system memory.
It's the minority that will push 64bit, but it will stay a minority until there is a broader NEED for 64bit. And the first step is getting people to use more of their systems and see that they need more than 4GB to work with.
Excuse me, do you really think that OEM vendors choose components based on the minimum requirements for the customer? I switched on television last night and saw Dell pushing machines with 4 gigs of memory - you need to have a 64bit OS to address 64bits worth of memory - Windows 32bit can only address up to 3gigs currently.
This is the reality, whether the customer needs it or not is immaterial; OEM's are pushing bigger more powerful machines, heck, by Windows 7 roles around, a 4gig machine will be a common sight.
Every time Dell sells a 32-bit machine with 4 gigs of memory, god kills a kitten.
Oh, and I laugh people's ability to spend money faster than oxygen. I once saw a person who bought a $6,000 laptop from Dell. The only difference was that it had pretty red lights, instead of the pretty blue lights on the $3,000 model(of which, sony/toshiba sells an even more powerful notebook for almost half the price).
Oh the humanity.