Windows gets a 'Mini-Me'
It's rare that anyone at Microsoft talks publicly about Windows 7, the next version of Windows. It's even rarer that anyone provides actual information about what might be inside the operating system, which is still in the planning stages.
However, Microsoft has posted a video of a recent university lecture given by Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut in which he talks about, among other things, a new, slimmed down kernel known as MinWin that was created as part of the Windows 7 development process.
The kernel, which lacks Vista's bells and whistles or even a graphics system at all, takes up just 25MB on disk as compared with 4GB that the full Windows Vista takes up. And while people would need far more than MinWin to run even a basic Web server, Traut said it shows that Windows, at its heart, does not have to be a monster resource hog.
Windows Vista, in all its glory, takes up a whopping 4GB of disk space.
(Credit: Microsoft)"That's kind of proof that there is actually a nice little core inside of Windows," Traut said. "A lot of people think of Windows as this really large, bloated operating system and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit. It is large. It contains a lot of stuff in it, but at its core, the kernel and the components that make up the very core of the operating system actually are pretty streamlined."
Traut stressed that MinWin, though it uses the Windows 7 code base, probably won't be used on its own.
"This is an internal only (thing)," Traut said in the video. "You won't see us productizing this, but you can imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future.
He did hint at some of the possibilities.
"We're definitely going to be using this internally to build all of the products that are based on Windows," he said. "We build a lot of products based on this kernel."
Beyond powering laptops and desktops, Traut notes that the Windows core powers servers, media centers and smaller embedded devices. "This will provide us the ability to move into even more areas," he said.
The full video runs quite long and talks a lot about hypervisors and other stuff, but blogger Long Zheng posted a clip of just the relevant part of the talk on his istartedsomething site. Even if you are not interested in Windows kernels and all that, the first part of the clip is worth watching just for the demos of early Windows versions, like version 1 and 2.
When asked for more info, Microsoft returned to its position of near-silence on the topic.
"As a company we're always exploring new ways to innovate Windows, using customer feedback as a guide," the company said in a statement e-mailed to CNET News.com. "The video posted to Channel 8 is a reflection of our commitment to platform innovation. No decisions have been made--it's still an ongoing discussion for now. We have no new information to share on future versions of the operating system at this time."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.
2010-2007 =/= 4
Puppy Linux http://www.puppylinux.org/
Damn Small Linux - http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Of course, its not as if bloat was invented by MS. However, they have taken it to a new level but its mostly because of the need to provide that compatibility. But even the linux kernel - even the tight versions - are expanding at a rapid rate. As memory and cycles get cheaper code will simply expand to fill the void.
Now, MS might have been smart to have dumped backwards compatibility and included an emulation mode to ala OS X - but its more difficult to make those changes when your market share is measured in 90%th percentile.
Now that Microsoft has a majority of the world using Windows, what if they release the core for free (but not open source), and then licensed software manufacturers to use the core. This makes them look like heroes to the average user, knocks their piracy R&D and operational costs to almost nothing, and provides easier litigation against companies for piracy. They would basically be selling rights to their market share.
That aside, anyone have any guesses on how Win 7 is going to be sold? I am betting that they sell a very basic core, that you purchase add on modules for. This keeps the size down, and speeds up the functionality. Oh, and is also the exact way that Linux installs (minus the price of course).
By the way, just so I can be the first one to draw the relationship...
Windows 7 - Seven deadly sins, seven ways to Win...
Is this the seventh sign?
to go there.
Vista is about the same.
Don't open source it. We don't need more division in our community. Just take it in the back yard and shoot it. We have ReactOS and WINE.
Microsoft did three things right over the course of their existence. (...But they vary depending on who you ask.)
To compare a kernel with an complete OS is not even apples and oranges.
Even with Microsofts extremely loose definition of what is an operating system.
discussed here. It is full of bells and whistles and includes a
graphics system. I believe the author has characterised the issue
fairly.
Many of these "extras" are considered inappropriate for a kernel,
for reasons of resource usage and security. What Traut is
demonstrating is a more streamlined, much smaller kernel,
which could ultimately serve as a model for a more secure,
efficient version of Windows, with much of the unnecessary
functionality moved out of the mission-critical kernel.
Frankly, I, personally, think such a plan (by Microsoft) is a terrible idea for consumers, businesses, technologists, and the computer-industry. It is, so-clearly, specifically designed to reassert Microsofts control over the industry, and consumers, as well as computer-use, in general. And, frankly, I think it just puts far too much control (and, potentially unending, forced revenue-extraction power) in the hands of a (proven to be repeatedly-abusive, and arrogant) monopoly.
Maybe, thats why so many are resisting adopting Microsofts products, and goals, at this time.
from each line of Vista code.
That alone slimmed the kernel down by 3.5 GB.
It sounds like this is someone just hacking through the Windows source code to produce some stripped down version. As a result, this version is not likely to be optimized for use in mobile devices, where such features like good power management need to be designed-in from the beginning.
and Windows 98. The Windows 98 computer is not on line it is used to play games on itself. I know I would have to build a computer to run vista because
my old computers cannot run it.
"And the end of all our searching shall be to return to the place where we started and know it for the first time"
- What is bloat ware Now.
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by morrie 52
October 22, 2007 7:33 AM PDT
- In the not to distant past the was a relevance to the power and size of OS,but in the present were dual and quad cores running with faster and faster processes with 4 mb cache and 500 Gb of hard drive are becoming the norm,so I do not understand why this a problem now.
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Reply to this comment
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- Well, imagine this...
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by Penguinisto
October 22, 2007 9:23 AM PDT
- I do 3D/CG artwork. One process in pursuing my wee muse involves a nasty little thing known as "rendering" - the process of turning a complex visual 3-dimensional algorithm into a 2-dimensional image, one that is properly shaded and lit.
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See all 39 Comments >>Now, rendering a typical 1024x768 image in 1999, on a Pentium 3 w/ 512MB of RAM, would take, say, 15 minutes. Today, using the same programs, same settings, and same mesh on a Vista-loaded Core Duo box w/ 4GB of RAM takes... 15 minutes.
Funny... the hardware has literally pentupled in horsepower and then some. The apps are the same. The mesh density and all the variables in the image haven't changed.
The OS on the other hand has managed to eat all the extra gains.
/P