Inside The Development of Windows NT

mrpuffypants writes "Winsupersite has a 3 part series this month about the history and development of Windows NT all the way up through Windows Server 2003. The author goes fairly in-depth describing how Windows is developed, managed, and how all 50 million+ lines are compiled daily. Part One covers the history of NT from its early days at Microsoft and Part Two discusses how the deployment of the forthcoming server version of Windows is coordinated daily." *shiver*

Comments

hmmm...

[garcia]

The stuffed mascot in the background looks an awful lot like someone else we know ;)

Re:hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you find it sad that you know that?

Plus, I think it was pointed out b/c it was the "war-room" and there was a penguin in it.

NT compile script

[Limburgher]

First line:

#!/bin/bash

Re:NT compile script

[pyrros]

Nah, my money is on:

@echo off

Re:NT compile script

[csguy314]

First line:

#!/bin/bash

Line two:
#By compiling this program you agree to the following terms:

WinNT development cycle.

[grub]

0) CVS checkout the latest net stuff from freebsd.org
1) Look at code and scratch head until "A-ha!"; enlightenment.
2) Merge code into Windows source
3) go to 0

Re:WinNT development cycle.

[ImpTech]

> 3) go to 0

Dijkstra is rolling over in his grave...

Re:WinNT development cycle.

[jeriqo]

> 0) CVS checkout the latest net stuff from freebsd.org
> 1) Look at code and scratch head until "A-ha!"; enlightenment.
> 2) Merge code into Windows source
> 3) go to 0

Damn! They use gotos in the development of windows?!
I know understand why it keeps crashing..

There we have it

[Anonymous Coward]

We thought, 'How hard could it be to build an OS?' and scheduled 18 months to build NT. But we had forgotten about some of the important stuff--user mode, networking, and so on."

Either this means that the NT team were actually fairly clueless...or incredibly cocky. Either way, that seems like a pretty stupid thing to say.

I can see the round table discussion now. . .

[bplipschitz]

"You compile it today."

"No way--*you* compile it!"

"No way! Hey--let's get Mikey, he'll compile *anything*!"

Security?

[elliotj]

"By late 1989, the NT group began growing. They added a formal networking team and expanded the security team beyond a single individual who, incidentally, had also been previously burdened by file system and localization development."

You mean they've got more than one guy working on security for Windows? Oh come on, who's gonna believe that?

Compiled?

[patvan]

I thought it was forged deep within Mt. Doom...

History of Windows

[Toasty16]

Bill Gates: "We need an OS that doesn't suck."

Engineers: "No problem, we'll release betas every year and you can sell them to the public for the price of a finished product."

Bill Gates: "Good idea. What do you think Steve?"

Steve Ballmer: "Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...*wheeze* *hack* *cough*...."

Bill Gates: "It's ideas like those that will make you CEO in 10 years."

Punted to longhorn

[dracken]

"On the day I attended, one feature group had four of its bugs punted to Longhorn because they had failed to shown up for War Room. When someone argued that they should be given another day, Wanke simply said, "F#$% 'em. If it was that important, they would have been here. It's in Longhorn. Next bug."

Did one feature group have its *feature* postponed to longhorn or the *bug-fixes* postponed to longhorn ? hmmmmmm interesting.

best quote from the article

[babycakes]

"For Windows Server 2003, the War Room is run by Todd Wanke, who we eventually found to be an amazingly likeable guy. However, in the hour-long War Room sessions, Wanke rules with an iron fist" :)

Incremental build?

[BenjyD]

"...compiling and linking it into the executable and other components that make up a Windows CD is a 12 to 13 hour process that is done every day of the week

So they rebuild Windows from scratch every day? Somebody send them a copy of make, please.

Did someone say cocky?

[Anonymous Coward]

...the War Room is run by Todd Wanke...

Oh dear. Poor Todd.

argument clinic

[Mr_Silver]

If there are one or more bugs in IIS, for example, a representative of the IIS team needs to be present to not only explain the merits of the bug, but whether customers are affected, how the fix might affect other parts of the system, and how soon it will be fixed.

To be honest, I don't see why they just don't hold these bug fixing meetings around the IIS guys desk :o)

Interesting...

[tshak]

There are 5000 developers on the Windows team generating over 50 million lines of code for Windows Server 2003.

I think it's safe to say that they're most defniitely _NOT_ using VSS!

Re:Finally...

[StressedEd]

Off topic but....

Give a man a fish, he owes you one fish.

Teach a man to fish, you give up your monopoly on fisheries.

My favorite...

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

NT source

[ptaff]

Oh, so now we learn that NT is not from "New Technology".

So in a couple of years we'll learn that:

• ME: Miserable Everytime
• CE: Cramped Environment
• XP: Xor Performance
• Office: Other File Formats Imply Collaboration: Encrypt!

Secret .NET language leaked

[jsse]

When someone argued that they should be given another day, Wanke simply said, "F#$% 'em. If it was that important, they would have been here. It's in Longhorn. Next bug."

C#, J#, S#....now we have F#....shall we pronounce it "Fuck Sharp"?

Where's the profit?

[YetAnotherName]

That "goto" in line 3 prevents lines 4 and 5 from working:
4) ???
5) Profit!

(Not that Micro$oft needs anymore of that.)

don't be happy

[newsdee]

That mascot is probably reserved for voodoo rituals :-) Geek or not, it's still MS... :-)

Re:it's tux, troll.

[frenetic3]

Waddle does not have a red eye. [iluvcollectibles.com] At least not on the TY site and he was discontinued in 98. You must have been paid to make that silly remark, that or very stupid.

Where is my "+1, Huge Nerd" mod option when I need it... :P

-fren

Sounds like typical Micro-FUD to me, bud

[ausoleil]

Microsoft's record of "innovation" has sunk to a new low -- now it looks like they are going to embrace-extend-exterminate Tux. These bozos can't even invent their own mascot...but then again, a furry, squishy bug (the animal most reminiscent of Windows, IMHO) isn't the most inspiring marketing tool.

Bet they claim they had a penguin for a mascot all along and it was those hippies, foreigners and un-American freaks that stole their idea and made Tux the mascot for that mean ole' Linux.

How typical.

50+ million lines of code!

[vena]

all brought down routinely by 5 line scripts :(

Re:The NT Kernel Is Good

[Billly Gates]

"The NT kernel was good. Then Microsoft moved the GUI into the kernel",

Boy, its a good thing that no frame buffers are in the Linux kernel.

12 hours to compile?

[lilbudda]

I guess it's true: What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away...