Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 A lot of people assume that MinWin is a Microsoft effort to completely rewrite the Windows Kernel from scratch. That may be based on earlier (limited) explanations about what it does, or it may have a lot to do with people assuming, due to people's efforts with open source software, that rewriting the kernel will solve all of Windows problems. Well, Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Technical Fellow and guru of all things NT Kernel, attempts to set the record straight in a 45 minute video from Channel 9. Microsoft also explains that "it *is* indeed in Windows 7." This excited me, and I wanted to ask you guys, what you thought?! Hurrah for parralell processing! :) Neowin Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisj1968 Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 I heard about minwin back in it's conception. MS wanted to trim the fat off the kernel. at the time I read the article, it was a very small footprint. I'm glad to see MS has warmed up to a leaner OS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 I heard about minwin back in it's conception. MS wanted to trim the fat off the kernel. at the time I read the article, it was a very small footprint. I'm glad to see MS has warmed up to a leaner OS Agreed, it sounds like it was a bit of a jumbled mess of code that no-one realyl had been keeping an eye on. I'm glad that lower level operations have been seperated from the higher ones, as higher level programs getting access to lower level processes can really mash things up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleNeutrino Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 in the original tech demo of minwin they were able to run the whole OS useing no more than 17mb of ram and 25 Mb of HDD space. however when the other parts of the OS running now windows 7 in its current form (albeit not finished yet) uses the same if not MORE system resources than windows Vista does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 this thread exist allready... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 in the original tech demo of minwin they were able to run the whole OS useing no more than 17mb of ram and 25 Mb of HDD space. however when the other parts of the OS running now windows 7 in its current form (albeit not finished yet) uses the same if not MORE system resources than windows Vista does. Well no, that's a common misconception, Windows 7 appears to be using most RAM alot of the time as rather than wasting RAM by leaving it Idle, it sends it to where it's needed. The same goes for the CPU. So rather than having ram that's doing nothing 50% of the time, it's busy most of the time. If you're referring to the amount of threads, thats a good thing, as more threads are better for Parralell processing, which is also a new part of Windows 7 Also, if you want no GUI on your OS, then so be it. A GUI is going to use resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToneKnee Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 MinWin is NT isn't it? They are fine tuning the kernel when they add more lines of code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Lyle Global Moderator Posted December 3, 2008 Global Moderator Share Posted December 3, 2008 Would be a good change for the operating system to get away from the aging NT... but don't fix something that isn't broken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panda X Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 It's NT. Wow MinWin really has been blown out of proportion. This MinWin is totally different than the super stripped NT OS we saw. Get over it. It's NT. End of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisj1968 Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 minwin/7 explained this might help a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majortom1981 Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Minwin is NT . Nothing new all they are doing was stripping things out to see howsmall they could get everything. It was more of an exercise in how to make windows more efficient. So technically vista has minwin also since its just the same stuff just with some things stripped out and made seperately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 Minwin is NT . Nothing new all they are doing was stripping things out to see howsmall they could get everything. It was more of an exercise in how to make windows more efficient. So technically vista has minwin also since its just the same stuff just with some things stripped out and made seperately. Well...no. As explained in the article things have been rearranged so higher process levels no longer directly interact with low level processes. This is a recipe for disaster (BSODs etc).. So essentially Win7 has the same Kernel, but sorted properly into levels of processes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HawkMan Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Would be a good change for the operating system to get away from the aging NT... but don't fix something that isn't broken Why? NT 6 isn't the same as NT 3.5 , they share a few basic principles but other than that they're hardly comparable. It's like saying Linux would do good to change to a new kernel since the Linux kernel is getting old... but then.. it's not linux anymore. And the NT kernel is still one if not the best kernel out there with functions superior to the comptition. Untill we get a brand new oputer architecture, it doesn't make sense to change to a bran new groun up rewrote generation of kernels. heck een MacOS chose to stick to what was allready out there rather than do their own for OSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 And just to noobify the thread, what the hell is Minwin :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 Why?NT 6 isn't the same as NT 3.5 , they share a few basic principles but other than that they're hardly comparable. It's like saying Linux would do good to change to a new kernel since the Linux kernel is getting old... but then.. it's not linux anymore. And the NT kernel is still one if not the best kernel out there with functions superior to the comptition. Untill we get a brand new oputer architecture, it doesn't make sense to change to a bran new groun up rewrote generation of kernels. heck een MacOS chose to stick to what was allready out there rather than do their own for OSX. Agreed - NT is quite the revolutionary kernel, and it evolves with every version change, essentially giving a "new" kernel. I'm happy with it already, and can't wait to see what Windows 7 brings to build on the fantastic job they did in Vista Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majortom1981 Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Well...no. As explained in the article things have been rearranged so higher process levels no longer directly interact with low level processes. This is a recipe for disaster (BSODs etc)..So essentially Win7 has the same Kernel, but sorted properly into levels of processes. Exactly its really still the same. Its not radically changed . Just made so the lower level stuff doesnt need to call the higher level things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 And just to noobify the thread, what the hell is Minwin :p Long Zheng posted a good article about it here last year. Check it out :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sethos Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Long Zheng posted a good article about it here last year. Check it out :) Thanks (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y_notm Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Well...no. As explained in the article things have been rearranged so higher process levels no longer directly interact with low level processes. This is a recipe for disaster (BSODs etc).. Not really. It's mainly to speed and ease development and testing of the OS. THey aren't changing things that make it inherently more stable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 3, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 3, 2008 Not really. It's mainly to speed and ease development and testing of the OS. THey aren't changing things that make it inherently more stable. Theoratically it does - well according to the Windows Server example. What I mean by this is the reason its not reccomended to install regular applications on servers is because they generally have default low level access, which can mash things up. Once a virus gets in there, it can do whatever the hell it likes with low level stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windows7even Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 i think they succeeded in making 7 more efficient. lets just hope it stays that way through rtm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AltecXP Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 Well its kernel 6.1 so yes, its not identical to Vista(6.0) but we already knew that for years now. Plus from what I hear most the changes are Optimizations then changes in how it functions. Someone said an example of when ONLY planing a DVD on a laptop, Win7 gets almost another Hr out of the battery then Vista does with identical laptops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owen W Veteran Posted December 4, 2008 Author Veteran Share Posted December 4, 2008 Well its kernel 6.1 so yes, its not identical to Vista(6.0) but we already knew that for years now. Plus from what I hear most the changes are Optimizations then changes in how it functions. Someone said an example of when ONLY planing a DVD on a laptop, Win7 gets almost another Hr out of the battery then Vista does with identical laptops. It's pretty sweet eh. What really annoys me is people flaming MS because 7 is built on Vista, but in reality, XP was built on Windows 2000 as well. It's the same thing, yet people are going on about how it should never be done Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Live Veteran Posted December 4, 2008 Veteran Share Posted December 4, 2008 MinWin isn't a feature or a product or a kernel. It's more an effort and set of guidelines and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_f Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 Thanks for clearing it up. I personally couldn't care less how Windows is made more functional, stable and fast as long as in time it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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