View Full Version : Microsoft shows off leaner kernel for Windows 7!
Fireblade
24-10-2007, 12:52
Eric Traut - a "distinguished engineer" at Microsoft, commented during a speech at a computing conference...
A lot of people think of Windows as this really large, bloated operating system, and that may be a fair characterization, I have to admit," said Eric Traut, who holds the title of distinguished engineer at Microsoft.
"[So] we created what we call MinWin.
It's still bigger than I'd like it to be, but we've taken a shot at really stripping out all of the layers above and making sure that we had a clean architectural layer there.
The Computer World (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9043359) article from which that quote is extracted, goes on to say...
Traut showed off MinWin and bragged about how much leaner the microkernel is than the current core of Windows.
While Vista uses 5,000 files for its 4GB core, MinWin weighs in at just 100 files and 25MB.
MinWin is so small that it lacks a graphical subsystem.
jacobzcoool
24-10-2007, 13:01
M$ actually admitted that vista was a big piece of bloated rubbish? :eek:
M$ actually admitted that vista was a big piece of bloated rubbish? :eek:
No, they admitted the kernel is. Not the same thing. In fact, until Linux brought in the concept of modules, the Linux kernel suffered from similar problems (i.e. everything loaded, whether it is needed or not).
Cheers,
Stephen
Watched this other day. It's good to know the designers @ Microsoft (at least some of them) have a clue. It's very refreshing.
Though you all know that this will be nothing but vapourware. As-if Mr. Ballmer is going to say in 4 years time, "Belold, Windows VistaX! And it runs on exactly the same hardware as your Vista PC did!" .. He'd destroy the industry; no-one would upgrade a thing, there'd be no money in new PC sales. Companies would go bust, economies the world over would experience a drop.
So yeah, it's awesome, but it'll never happen. The only chance of it ever coming to light is in embedded devices and/or something akin to VMWare ESX.
DarkEntity
26-10-2007, 18:52
It would be nice to see a Vista Lite, similar to 98SE Lite from a few years ago. all the excess stuff removed and installed by the user if they wanted rather than becuase they were there.
nicky munchkin
26-10-2007, 19:08
It would be nice to see a Vista Lite, similar to 98SE Lite from a few years ago. all the excess stuff removed and installed by the user if they wanted rather than becuase they were there.
98Lite was beautiful. No IE4, no MSN crap. Beautiful.
saltynay
26-10-2007, 19:11
This is old news I read this 2 days ago, didn't post because I still can't post in the news forum ;).
Fireblade
26-10-2007, 19:46
This is old news I read this 2 days ago...
Two days ago is "old" :confused:
As for reading about it two days ago... I posted that two days ago :rolleyes:
No need to get sarkie, just 'coz you can't post in the news section :D
Question is, how is this mini windows used? Windows doesn't have a good enough command line for total control...
Are they aiming this for the embedded market or something? They've got quite a task ahead of them if they want to take on the Linux Embedded market...
Question is, how is this mini windows used? Windows doesn't have a good enough command line for total control...
O rly? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell)
Are they aiming this for the embedded market or something? They've got quite a task ahead of them if they want to take on the Linux Embedded market...
Hah! As sad and as horrid as it is, companies would kill to say 'buy our device, it'll integrate with all the software that you already have!'
I'd also note that I wouldn't like to be a manufacturer of thin clients now that Vista's turned up, which gives MinWin at least one doorway of opportunity.
Aha, learn something everyday I do!
While the integration with software you allready have thing is a good point, I expect companies wouldn't like to pay another £X for a license on such embedded software... And they'd have the enormous proverbial kettle of fish that is security aspects and the availability of software on such a thin windows client... I doubt IIS is as thin as 25MB...
While the integration with software you allready have thing is a good point, I expect companies wouldn't like to pay another £X for a license on such embedded software... And they'd have the enormous proverbial kettle of fish that is security aspects and the availability of software on such a thin windows client... I doubt IIS is as thin as 25MB...
Well, they did have a lean web server running from MinWin. It's probably the sort of web server you can program in an afternoon, but hey - shows they realised that IIS wasn't suitable for it, maybe they'd build something on that?
But if there's one thing I've learnt about Microsoft and licensing; they can be incredibly flexible if they think it's to their advantage, i.e. to crush an open source competitor.
And then you have to remember, there are those out there whom have trained their entire life on Microsoft software. They've got almost as many die-hards as Apple have. :rolleyes:
nicky munchkin
27-10-2007, 14:06
Though you all know that this will be nothing but vapourware. As-if Mr. Ballmer is going to say in 4 years time, "Belold, Windows VistaX! And it runs on exactly the same hardware as your Vista PC did!" .. He'd destroy the industry; no-one would upgrade a thing, there'd be no money in new PC sales. Companies would go bust, economies the world over would experience a drop.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/sysreqs.mspx
http://www.windows2000.windowsreinstall.com/specs.htm
Barely any change at all there, especially in the day and age that 2k and XP were released.
It's all these automatic updates and service packs that slow us down, back in the day we were running XP original on 256mb RAM and it run fast (although buggy as hell).
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/sysreqs.mspx
http://www.windows2000.windowsreinstall.com/specs.htm
Barely any change at all there, especially in the day and age that 2k and XP were released.
It's all these automatic updates and service packs that slow us down, back in the day we were running XP original on 256mb RAM and it run fast (although buggy as hell).
Doesn't look a lot, but those differences were far bigger back then, than they are today. XP's minimum specs were definitely higher, whatever the official figures were. :)
Doesn't look a lot, but those differences were far bigger back then, than they are today. XP's minimum specs were definitely higher, whatever the official figures were. :)
before sp1 those specs where fine,
uuhh;422554']before sp1 those specs where fine,
Eugh .. I used to run it with a K6-2 500 and 128MB of RAM, it was awful :(
well i built a cheap system for someone back then but it had a faster CPU. i cant tell you how well it ran all i know is it instaleld fine and booted up fine the first couple of times.
i personaly used 98 until SP1.
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