C|Net has some initial information about the next version of Windows and it’s slimmer, more efficient kernel.
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Windows Gets a 'Mini-Me'
- Thread starter Rich Tate
- Start date
It sounds like this "MinWin" is still based around the same core code.
I seem to recall a few of years back, somewhere in the early days of Vista, a very low key revelation that MS had actually started a semi-experimental/Proof of concept side project to build a whole new OS core from scratch, with a just a small team of coders working completely outside the windows development infrastructure, which didn't reference or derive from any previous windows code at all.
They said at the time that it would be many years before it would ever become a retail product, if it ever did, certainly a couple of more Windows down the line, and I'm pretty sure "MinWin" is not it, but it sounded really interesting at the time, and I'm really curious as to how that's going, if it is still going. The project had a codename, possibly "Blue *something*" , but I can't remember what it was
I seem to recall a few of years back, somewhere in the early days of Vista, a very low key revelation that MS had actually started a semi-experimental/Proof of concept side project to build a whole new OS core from scratch, with a just a small team of coders working completely outside the windows development infrastructure, which didn't reference or derive from any previous windows code at all.
They said at the time that it would be many years before it would ever become a retail product, if it ever did, certainly a couple of more Windows down the line, and I'm pretty sure "MinWin" is not it, but it sounded really interesting at the time, and I'm really curious as to how that's going, if it is still going. The project had a codename, possibly "Blue *something*" , but I can't remember what it was
Yeah, there's a good chance that it was singularity that I was thinking of, but I still have a feeling that it was something more imminently practical and less experimental.
Still, singularity is a cool project
gee...if that ever comes out i'm sure we'll hear more bitching about MS changing something for the better.
No Vista was always going to based on the same legacy codebase/kernel as XP/2k/NT/etc, but it was meant to have a bunch of managed code above Kernel level, it got ditched though.
Despite the small size, "MinWin" is the same derivative code that has been added to and futzed around with since windows was 8-bit.
It is however promising that MS have stripped it back that far, hopefully for the next OS the will do a real code clean up and re-write, instead of re-heating and re-writing existing stuff and hanging a few new bits off the old skeleton.
With virtualization plans at the core of Win7, slimming down the kernel was probably a necessity. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9043359
Money quote from the computerworld article:
<i>The microkernel will be used only internally and won't, as Traut put it, be "productized." Instead, it will be the basis of all upcoming versions of Windows, including the next-generation edition now saddled with the code name Windows 7.</i>
Folks, you will not be seeing this small, optimized kernel. End of line.
<i>The microkernel will be used only internally and won't, as Traut put it, be "productized." Instead, it will be the basis of all upcoming versions of Windows, including the next-generation edition now saddled with the code name Windows 7.</i>
Folks, you will not be seeing this small, optimized kernel. End of line.