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Windows 7 Won't Have Compact "MinWin" Kernel
An anonymous reader points us to an interview Microsoft's Windows 7 development chief, Steven Sinofsky, did with CNet. He reveals that Windows 7 will be a further evolution of Vista, and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel. "We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same. We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model. Windows Vista was about improving those things. We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about. The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
Start the Windows Vista and Windows Seven bashing!
oooooh that was quick.. /marks that one off the list/
shall we have a pool as to what will be next?
(and yes I know powershell was released as an addon)
The current fortune cookie ("User hostile.") at the end of the page is somehow very fitting...
Why would we believe these guys in Redmond again? They have sold us vaporware for decades. They promised the cool new file system in Vista and it was scrapped early in. They are going in the right direction--abandoning the hamstring of backwards compatibility--but who has any faith in Microsoft's ability to execute? I think I know the reason too. Microsoft has always selected the highest rated developers. Well, ratings may judge raw intelligence but not creativity. And it is the latter thing that is in short supply. Microsoft just does not attract creative rule benders. Instead, it attracts go alongs--people who followed the rules and did the right thing all along--which leaves them with high scores on standardized tests but bereft of any creative initiative. This has been my experience, at least.
"..and will lose the rumored MinWin kernel." So in other words, the only thing really going for Windows 7 has been dropped. I feel that many businesses were holding out for Windows 7 to fix all the problems that Vista introduced.. it looks likely that this is not the case. If this shift is confirmed, then I really suspect that a lot of Microsoft houses will begin to dump the platform altogether.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
Great, an article telling us what Windows 7 isn't. While they're at it, somebody should write a story about how it doesn't use the Linux or MacOS kernels either. From the start Microsoft has been telling us that MinWin is an experimental, non-production kernel and that it wouldn't be in Windows 7. Now CNet reports it and its like new news all over again. Yawn.
We saw this only too well with Vista. /. readers) are experiencing.
...'
Now the same with Windows 7. The more and more I hear about it the less I'm inclined to beleive that this new OS release will fix the problems that have been all too evident with Vista ( slow file copy, nagware etc etc etc) that the majority (non
Everything seems to being rushed out. I wonder how many cases of Duct tape are being deivered to Microsoft this month.
Remember the slogan 'The WOW starts
All I here is "WOW is it that bad"
Will it become worse that Vista? That is the $64 Zillion question.
In related news, the US Military is going to build off the success of the Iraw war, the travel industry is going to build off the success of the Titanic and David Letterman is going to build off the funny of this comment.
We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7
What, all five of them?
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Seriously. When are Microsoft going to wake the hell up?
Disappointing that the first exciting thing coming out of MS OS in a long time is now not even to be a part of Vista part 2. MinWin had me thinking that MS was starting to change back into the company of its golden era (i.e. late 80s - 90s) when it released operating systems with new features that made one excited to buy the latest and greatest OS.
Oh well, maybe this will enable the year(s) of the Linux on the desktop (smile)?
"We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same.
...now, what exactly?
Not only could the average user not find an advantage in Vista over XP (remember, users rarely care what's under the hood, they just want to use the system), now even geeks won't see a difference between the old and the new system?
Ok, let's be constructive. We heard now what will not be different between Vista and "Windows 7". So what will? Because, well, if it's the same... I'm no marketing guru, but I guess even the marketing guys in Redmond might have a hard time selling the same product again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's see now... MS develops great new technology, but only so far as so that it can be seen what potential it has. MS hypes (to a greater or lesser extent) this new technology. MS explains that actually this new technology won't be used in the next version of MS Windows.
What was that really good filesystem we were going to see in Windows XP, sorry I mean Vista?
Oh right, this time it is because of backwards compatibility, rather then any other reason. But still, people keep saying it, why doesn't MS just dump the crud, go with a great new secure system (MinWin sounded like a good start), and use emulation to support all the old software?
With drivers (the specific reason given here), they could easily have a backwards compatible layer implemented above the microkernal for drivers that needed it.
Meh.
I wank in the shower.
Windows 7 will be what Vista should have been. It will be provide a decent user experience on top of being bloated.
I thought moving towards a componentized design was the evolution of the kernel. I don't get from the article that moving toward the concept of MinWin is no longer a design goal.
Is there anything actually wrong with the NT6.1 Kernel?
I mean, Vista has it's problems, granted, but can any informed person here state what's so bad about the Kernel itself, since that's what's causing all the fuss??
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Even if Windows 7 didn't take up half of your hard drive space, it'll still take up half of your life savings in software and repairs just to keep it running.
So this is going to be business as usual? I tought that the production of Vista was quite a traumatic experience.
But maybe doing a leap instead of evolution would overburden the company's structure. Or is the strain (of users and/or MS) not high enough?
"Hannibal's plans never work right. They just work." Amy/A-Team
Isn't this slow and steady 'removal of promised features' what got us Vista in the first place?
If firefighters fight fire, and crimefighters fight crime, what do freedom fighters fight? - George Carlin
Oh well, In that case I expect Windows 7 to ship in 2010, and be only slightly more bloated. Apart from that it will be pretty much the same as vista, a big non-event that might as well be released as Vista service pack 2.
"drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same"
Bzzt! Logical inconsistency detected! Abort/retry/fail?
apterous.org
Augh. The entire concept of MinWin has been lost to time. It's NOT a custom kernel. It's NOT a kernel rewrite. It is, and always was, the literal minimal version of Windows. MinWin was never a shipping feature that any customer would care about - in fact in the first iteration it was intended as the first, required, component of Windows embedded - the fully componentized version of Windows.
If my Vista Ultimate is less than a year old, do I get a free upgrade? I have a VERY bad feeling about this.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
"We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7"
Windows 7 will be incompatible with just about every third party application. Any compatibility with other Microsoft will be purely incidental.
"We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel"
We're making it an even larger resource hog. Idling, Windows 7 will likely occupy 2 or more cores, and 4GB of ram.
"The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
We're going to try our best to make Windows 7 so convoluted that no one can possibly discover the vast security holes.
Hope this is a bit easier to read.
Heck, as long as they fix the many problems with Vista and make it the product Vista should have been, it will probably sell quite well. In fact, they've practically created a new OS market with all that nice new hardware going out the door with Vista pre-installed: the "Vista replacement market". Currently that huge market need is being satisfied by Windows XP (a sale is a sale), Linux, and (if people get fed up enough and switch hardware) Mac OS X.
Who would have thought Microsoft could have figured out a way to sell *two* Windows licenses per machine (one for Vista, and one XP license when people downgrade)? It's brilliant! Well, as long as too many people don't switch to other alternatives, but en masse migration is a long way off. Still, it would be nice if Microsoft offered a more modern "Vista replacement OS" once Windows XP is completely phased out. Windows 7 could fit that bill.
Well, unless it is so bad people will want to downgrade to Vista. That's a scary thought.
IPv6 support in XP is incomplete. When the IPv4 addresses run out in two years, Vista will be vindicated.
Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well.
Wasn't Windows 7 supposed to be the departure from the Windows kernel? Instead of a new direction it's turned into Vista II, Steeper and Deeper. Instead of moving forward they're trying to get back to their last good product line.
Guess this is Microsoft's idea of leaving the past behind and forging boldly into last week.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
M$ is hoping for a "WinWin" kernel.
Invenio via vel creo
Vista kernel was a rewrite (and great success..). Now they try to build on said great success, instead of rewriting it again. Makes sense :-)
http://revj.sourceforge.net
In my home business, I'm down to ONE program that runs only on Windows (ebay Blackthorne). ONE. (Wine doesn't cut it).
Otherwise, I could be running on OS X for 1 laptop and the PCs would be switched over to Ubuntu or something similiar, maybe RedHat.
Years ago, the internet was hamstringed by many windows only incompatibilities. Firefox evened the playing field there. Most programs were windows only (Quickbooks and Tax Programs can run on Mac now).
Windows grasp in my business is tenuous indeed. Granted, mine is a small business - but aren't many in America?
Plus in Linux, it's simple not to include a webbrowser. You can do the same in Windows, IIRC, (actually just turn it off), but there always seems to be a workaround on firing it up again. Those are one of the biggest productivity killers - my employees should be surfing at home.
It's not that I care about licensing fees, but my operation is too small to hire someone technical who knows how to do everything the right way and I find the Windows boxes need the most babysitting. Time killer = Money Wasted.
Couldnt they just forget Vista2 and just fix XP for newer hardware?
Microsoft really needs to admit that it lacks any courage and hire Steve Jobs as a consultant to blaze a new path for them. Never have I seen a company with such a lack of vision or daring.
"...and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well."
Could you guys just go back and evolve Windows 2000 instead?
The Microsoft OS development model:
1. Promise the next version will be a geek's wet dream
2. Over the course of the several years of development, slowly step away from each and every major feature
3. Release the new version which is, at best, a minor upgrade from the previous version.
4. Profit!
We are currently at step 2.
OK, maybe not. But they sure are struggling to get something new and better to market.
Vista is a flop not in a commercial sense of pounds, shillings and pence but in that it has damaged the brand.
And listen to this one... I travel to work on the tube in London. Quite often you see people reading tech books on the way in or out. Yesterday, for the first time ever there was someone (other than me, of course) reading a Linux tech book.
The revolution was, it is and it will be!
Well, I guess not totally unbelievable. Slashdot readers are capable of complaining about both Vista's biggest non-imaginary problem (hardware compatibility) and in the same post, complaining about the solution (building on the existing core rather than rewriting again, thereby making new driver development much simpler).
...I, for one, welcome our Vista Service Pack 2 overlords.
If the OS works and functions like Vista with no major changes or increased hardware support (multi-touch... pffft just make my damn printer work), it sounds to me more like a SP release than a full-blown new OS.
The game.
No-one wants an OS that requires a beefy machine just to run. We want a tiny OS that leaves us most of the machine to do with as we will. The desktop is morphing into a form of client via the browser. Who would want a fat OS to run their browser when a thin one will also run their browser, but faster on the same client machine. This is what the sub-laptops are all about. Thin OS, means you can have a thin/cheap client. Using a old OS isn't really a solution, you want one that scales with the hardware. I.e Linux. If MS wants to compete, they need MinWin. Not that I want them to, I want source code for when the docs fail me (though the Wine source is quite good for Win32 questions if msdn isn't answering you ;-) ).
Polish that turd up good, boys! I want to see my face in it!
How did Windows 7 lose the MinWin kernel exactly? I know that none of you people actually read articles, but when MinWin was discussed it was specifically mentioned that it was not a component of the upcoming Windows 7. It was a research project, not developments from the Windows team.
Go ahead, watch the video demo. He explicitly says this:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20071019/eric-talk-demo-windows-7-minwin/
Of course it's more fun to pretend that Microsoft did say that they were going to include it, and only recently stated that they're not. At this point you are making fun of your own delusions, which is on par for Slashdot but still mentally unhealthy.
I am really happy about this.
as a linux user, (i befriended the penguin after one day of vista) watching MS drop the ball a second time is good news.
i can feel it.....
2010 will be the year of linux on the desktop.
(at least for some people it will be, just like how 2007 was the year of linux on MY desktop)
-I only code in BASIC.-
I get the feeling it will be a repeat of Win ME or does no one else remember that joke.
Alternatively it seems M$ goes in leaps and fails, 98 was good, ME was a joke, XP was good Vista is a lemon, maybe we might still be in for a surprise... if not i guess i will work on taking up Linux and getting wine working for all my games.
Goodbye only reason I was interested in Windows 7, and Microsoft in general.
So that's 'further evolution' as in "we're dropping loads of cool new features". Microsoft really have lost the plot in the last few years, and Canonical for one are willing to capitalize on any weakness on Microsoft's part. They may still have the market share to impress, but Microsoft are going to have to make Windows 7 count in order to regain the sort of mind share they've lost as of late.
If you read the entire piece, that is what he said in answer ANOTHER question, but when asked directly- What was this idea then that got talked about in terms of a kind of minimum kernel? Sinofsky: Well, why don't we stick at a higher level today, because I think that I don't want to really dive into the implementation details today. It's still out there.
/LabMonkey09
Ever since the VMS guys left, there hasn't been any forward development in windos. They still have the big dreams ("database filesystem!") but they lack the ability to turn them into reality. When W7 arrives, everyone will be disappointed. You can quote me on that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Make Your Own Ubuntu Live CD/DVD or Distro with Remastersys
/etc/apt/sources.list file.
I'm surprised this isn't more well known, Ubuntu + Remastersys is very nice and easy:
http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/
Official Remastersys forum, here's where you ask and learn:
http://loscompanion.com/forums/index.php?board=58.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remastersys
http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/make-an-ubuntu-backup-live-cddvd-with-remastersys-330181.php
http://klikit.pbwiki.com/Remastersys
http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2007/09/remaster-and-clone-your-ubuntu-install.html
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/creating-custom-ubuntu-live-cd-with-remastersys.html
http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-linux-mint-livecd-with-remastersys
For those that don't already have it handy, here is the repo info for you
# Remastersys
deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/
Please MOD this up if you find it useful, I think it is, but it gets buried with time and people don't see it because I'm posting as anonymous coward, thanks!
In short, I don't need Windows, it failed me long ago and fails me now, no reason to expect or care for it (or the convicted monopoly) to improve.
Windows 7 = Vista 1.1
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Maybe not exactly what people had in mind, but here's a quote from the Vista blog by Chris Flores:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/05/27/communicating-windows-7.aspx
Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista. While these changes will increase our engineering agility, they will not impact the user experience or reduce application or hardware compatibility. In fact, one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.
That's all I needed to complete the set of Major Features Dropped From Windows! Yay! What do I win?
http://tinyurl.com/fgd3x
MS are spending a lot of time saying to Enterprises that their move to Vista is very important as it will make the move to Windows 7 a lot easier.
Its terrifying that they are saying' please buy our product, it won't do anything special for you but it will make it easier for you to buy our product again later' and getting away with it !
I don't think this is the kind of stuff that anyone, especially Microsoft shareholders, wanted to hear about their plans for the next version of Windows.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
In related news, I just heard a bottle of champaign pop over in Cupertino.
Full Tilt
Where "improving" should be read as "adding several layers of DRM protection"
So the next version of windows will have the same performance-boggling, customer-hostile driver model? Well, thanks for the advance warning, I suppose.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
I think Microsoft got burnt after the faliure with developing Vista, the first try that they had to scrap and start over. This and their spaghetti codebase has made them very reluctant to do other than minor adjustments of the current codebase.
Windows 7 looks to be just Vista with some new icons and some bolted on userspace applications. A new theme^wservicepack is all we get.
HTTP/1.1 400
"We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same."
Ah!
Ha!
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If Microsoft were to break backwards compatibility, it would first and foremost mean that all current windows users would evaluate the opposition. And to beat the competition Microsoft would have to offer better quality at a better price. From scratch, from day one. Yeah right.
This is the exact reason why Microsoft keeps extending its flawed product while pretending to fix it.
Stop the brainwash
...the fact that they say they're building on top of Vista does. It suggests to me that Microsoft truly has shifted over to protecting its installed base by any means necessary, and that any form of innovation that even hints at breaking backwards compatibility will eventually be thrown out.
It's clear that Microsoft is clearly rooted nowhere but in the here-and-now because innovation is full of risk, and Microsoft doesn't want to take any risks. They simply are incapable of turning their boat like Apple did with the move from OS9 to OSX, yes because their installed base is larger, but I also believe because they rightly or wrongly believe that the vast majority of users simply won't follow; Microsoft products are the thing that you're forced to use, not because you want to. To make sure people are never given a choice, Microsoft will simply increment Windows tiny step by tiny step; I think Vista shows that they're incapable (and their users are unwilling) to accept any bigger steps from them.
Nonsense, .NET is quite possibly Microsofts one winning strategy in the programming language world.
.NET, I don't see it going away any time soon.
.NET compatible version of Python. That's bordering on seriously cool.
I'm guessing you haven't used it, since you mention hearing it's dying, but not your own experience with it. You should give it a go, it's actually rather nice in its c# form.
Given that it is compatible with both Linux and Mac versions of
While your at it, try IronPython, the
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Don't Vista licenses come with downgrade rights for XP? Maybe they'll keep that up with Windows 7.
If it's just a small evolution of the existing kernel, shouldn't it be Windows 6.2 instead of Windows 7?
On the other hand Microsoft has never been logical with version numbers, Word 2 -> 5 -> 97 -> XP -> 2007. Exponential growth seems to be what they're aiming for.
Erik Dalén
Of course the drivers and software that run on vista are going to run on Windows 7. Clearly, all they're going to do is rebrand Vista, change some eye candy, and pray it sells thistime around!
They'd be doing it now, but they need to wait long enough that people will believe they've done some actual work on it.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
FYI, the "Windows explorer" for the local filesystem is actually another browser window. Type an URL into the address field, and hey presto - you're surfing the internet ;-)
Personally, I'd like to get rid of that too. Not because I'm anti-surfing but because it is a waste of system ressources to use a full-blown web browser for looking at your directories. Bloat like that is responsible for Windows getting more ressource-hungry every new version.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Vista was supposed to be a LOT of things. They pulled out all the good stuff and left a bunch of crap that nobody wants. Some might argue the new visual enhancements [eye candy] is appealing for some, but better than that is available through 3rd parties on XP.
I've been very interested in Windows 7 since I've heard they are going to return to a smaller, simpler design leaving legacy compatibility to virtualization. But now that the words "Vista compatibility" are used, I'm disappointed.
With all their money and resources, I have no doubt that they can do what they said they would do. So why aren't they?
Worse: How much longer will I be able to stretch the use of WindowsXP?
What Windows 7 really needs is to be built from the ground up. Make it work well in a small package, and not be a gigantic resource hog. An OS is to run programs and be an interface to the system, not to look super pretty. An OS should not require a large graphics card to function.
The Windows releases have pretty much just been adding more stuff into an already overly large OS. And make it so that it doesn't load everything under the sun at startup.
Scrap it and make some clean code. For compatability have a windowed emulator mode that will allow legacy apps.
- now, is that a good thing, or a bad thing? I, as a vista-non-user, wonder. Seriously...?
SAN FRANCISCO, Redmond, Friday (UnGadget) - With Vista(tm) just out the door, Microsoft is drawing up plans to deliver its followup, codenamed Windows 7, by the end of 2009^W2010. That would be a much faster turn-around than Vista, which shipped more than five years after Windows XP.
... Except Vista, of course. That's pretty good. But Windows 7 is just so amazing. Wow(tm)! It's the most fantastic thing ever. Incredible. Mac OS 10.4 can't possibly hold a candle to it."
Vista's uptake has been stupendous, with copies flying off the shelves and midnight queues on release day turning into major street riots, police deploying water cannons and rubber bullets, to rival the release scenes for the PlayStation 3 and the Zune. It is expected to give a significant boost to the computer hardware industry, per the Mended Windows Theory of economics. But Windows 7 aims even higher.
"We have a radical vision for Windows 7," says Steve Sinofsky, corporate vice-marketer for development. "It's definitely the one to wait for. You should avoid buying any other operating system or even looking at them until you see Windows 7
So what will be the coolest new feature in Windows 7? According to Sinofsky, that's still being worked out. "We're going to look at a fundamental piece of enabling technology. Maybe it's hypervisors, or a new user interface paradigm for consumers, or rotating cubes like in Ubuntu, or WinFS, which is definitely due to ship with Windows NT 4 in 1994. Or whatever Apple puts in Mac OS 10.6, really. Hell, I dunno. What's really shiny?"
The much-derided Digital Rights Management system in Vista will be worked over. "We'll be including user-downloadable 'tilt bits,' which you can configure to your own liking. It'll require every user to supply a blood sample for DNA analysis, but of course that's only if you want to play *premium* content."
Independent bloggers Wiki Jelliffe, Patrick Durusau and Alex Brown were incontinent in their praise. "I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will surely go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, that will be all fixed with $NEXT_VERSION. And they?ll finally be ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF. Also there will be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It?ll be awesome! I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION."
"It's too early for me to talk about it," added Sinofsky. "But over the next few months I think you're going to start hearing more and more."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I know its the fashion to hate windows, but please have a look for Windows Server 2008 running desktop applications benchmarks, with all the nice shiney gadgets of Vista.
You wont believe it till you see the results (10-20% quicker than Vista, on par or very close to XP), but I'm currently using Server 2008 as a Desktop. Think of it as Vista, FIXED! Things happen smoothly under this OS, superfetch works properly, no freezing file dialogues, no trouble, I just cant believe its based on the same kernel... the difference is that striking. Whatever went on in Server 2008 should have been passed down to Vista.
So before one goes writing off Windows 7, consider Server 2008. Looking forward to Windows 7 if they're basing it on Server 2008!
Microsoft likes to talk a good game, but in the end they have to remain backwards compatible and therefore it just becomes more bloated.
Sounds like Windows Vista was like the new discovery of a pokemon. Wait! [Windows Vista] is evolving! [Windows Vista] has evolved into [Windows Server 2008]! Wait! [Windows Server 2008] is evolving! [Windows Server 2008] has evolved into [Windows 7]! While XP gets left behind... someone feed it rare candy's plz :(
#define true false
This seems radically new for Windows 7 - an interface using touchscreen technology, based on Microsoft's brilliant 'Surface' coffee table prototype. Apparently they want to move away from the mouse and keyboard to using the fingers to manipulate documents. Tom Cruise anyone?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/technology/7422924.stm
Am I the only one who thinks this is kind of a joke? Half of us are confortable in their linux boxes, and the other half in their shiny macs. Who cares what features an already obsolete OS will have in 2016 when it's going to be released?
.sig
To me it feels like Microsoft has passed 'peak Windows' and should work on a graceful decline of the Windows platform instead of yet another pie-in-the-sky version which does not add anything computer users are really asking for, and takes whatever hardware performance increases have been made for its own purposes.
Windows as a platform is being phased out. It will be replaced by something network-based, focused on network-delivered services but offering local processing and storage capacity. You can fill in your own favourite buzzword here, be it 'Web something.zero' or some virtual machine which runs everywhere, or the next great API to rule the world after Win32 or whatever. Main thing is that development strategies are no longer geared towards heavy and relatively static Windows PC's but towards flexible networked clients.
Sure, we've heard the same before, 'the network is the computer' and more like that. This time around 'the network' actually is getting close to be up to the job. Never mind that a substantial part of the actual processing still will take place on the client device (in one of those 'run everywhere' dialects, something not platform-specific), the main premise is that future development will not target 'the operating environment known as Windows' but instead targets 'the client environment available via the network'.
At least that is how I see it, and have been doing it for the last few years...
--frank[at]unternet.org
Can someone point out where in the article it actually says that MinWin will not be included?
Now we're talking about Windows 7 and 08, I think they should call it Windows 10 as it is going to be released in 2009. Or better, they should call it Windows X. Then they can add something along the lines of 10.1 to it, you know like Windows X 10.1. That sounds more interesting. And along the lines of this development, they should call for the Office Assistent to twist his legs and fill the position of mascotte and to pose on the boxed version.
I should clarify this a bit -- when I say modern business apps, I don't mean something like Quickbooks necessarily (though for all I know it could be), I mean more along the lines of, company X needs a custom application to automate or better manage aspect Y of its business.
If they were trying to wriggle out of anti-trust, they would not have blown through $40 billion in cash and then tried to go into debt to buy Yahoo. Their old style of stealing "mature" markets by purchasing a "loss leader" and then screwing everyone else on their platform is done for. All the innovative programming and markets have happened on the web and in free software which are out of their reach. They made their platform suck and people left - the whole house of cards is falling on them. All they have left is patent lawsuit threats and entertainment deals with other dying publishers. Those sharks are going to dump them soon enough.
By it either by using compatibility layers like Wine (which reaching a 1.0 milestone) or using virtual machines like VirtualBox, VMWare, Xen, etc... (I saw the "seamless integration" mode of VMWare on a MacOS X and its really nice). And these virtual machines are only running out-of-the-box plain Windows on out-of-the-box plain hosts. Imagine what Microsoft could achieve, given that they control the software and can re-design the "free Windows XP / Vista virtual OS" to take special advantage of the system and integrate even better.
I think the main reason they're not doing it is exactly that :
they maintain their market monopoly by leveraging the lock-in people are experiencing because of thousand of legacy Windows applications that they depend on.
If Microsoft go the "Virtual OS" route, they'll suddenly bring to the general population's attention that their software runs perfectly inside virtual machines. The users would suddenly realise they might NOT be forced to pay once again a Microsoft upgrade tax. They could use a well integrated virtual machine on which ever OS they chose and simply keep their old Windows version for which they've already bought a license anyway to run their legacy applications inside a virtual machine.
Suddenly Microsoft would be at risk of seeing masses of users switching to VMWare fusion running on Macs or the then descendants of EEE PCs (which, I suspect, by then could have enough horse power for a virtual machine. Although maybe not a Vista one)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
AFAIK Microsoft's biggest cash cows are Windows and Office. Immediate competitors are Linux and Apple's Mac OS X for Windows and Open Office for Microsoft Office. All of these are not specifically "enterprise" software, but aimed at pretty much every user. And the Open Source alternatives look pretty nice at least from a user perspective.
;-)
There is also stuff like Exchange/Outlook, SQL Server and the developer tools. This is what I would call "enterprise" software. Here Microsoft looks good and Open Source seems to lag behind (feel free to correct me) but I don't think that is where the big money is.
And then there is customer-specific "enterprise" software that is written for the particular needs of some company, department or project. Usually by some small vendor that does custom development or inhouse developers. Here you will find lots of abysmal software, but AFAIK Microsoft is not in that market. Too bad for them, because in this area they could outcompete most of the others on quality
C - the footgun of programming languages
You're correct about Konqueror, and Linux with KDE is similar to XP in memory consumption. I find this a tad disappointing on part of the Open Source desktop developers, even if my current PCs can handle it easily.
Well, maybe I'll have too much time someday and go into Gnome/KDE hacking...
C - the footgun of programming languages
"Build on the success of VISTA..?" Well, you can't fault Microsoft for lacking a sense of humor.
"We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities"
Is that a typo, or is that what he actually said?
"Don't worry! The programs that don't work in Vista won't work in Windows 7 either!"
It's like Microsoft DESPERATELY want to fail.
Windows 7's MinWin promise actually got me thinking about buying it when it arrived on the scene. Thats not going to happen.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
From a technical point of view, that might be the best they can do. Having the source code to the original Win32 stuff, they should be able to do better than the WINE team.
But I don't think they will use WINE as it is, because it is a Windows -> Linux API translation layer. So their new system would have to implement the Linux API, which is design restriction of its own.
Also, WINE is GPL'ed, so they would have to give away any improvements they make along with their version. Which would mean that Windows 7 backward compatibility would be pretty much equal to Linux + WINE. Not a good situation if you want to charge a few hundred dollars for the better versions of your OS.
C - the footgun of programming languages
If you look at the people Microsoft R&D has hired, the projects they work on, and the output that consumers actually see from it - the only conclusion you can come to is that Microsoft R&D is a way to collect really smart and creative people, to put them on display and (more importantly) keep them from producing products from anyone else, even if Microsoft never makes use of their output.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Out of curiosity have you tried asking for an OS X or Linux port of Blackthorne? If others have the same bottleneck for upgrading, it can be possible to show demand, or at worst pool resources and get WINE or Cedega to support it. Tools built with normal cross-platform languages like Java, C, C++ and so on can use cross-platform GUI toolkits like Qt and GTK+
Alternately, what is the one thing that Blackthorne does that similar tools don't? (Aside from you have it installed already and are presumably familiar with it.) Maybe there's a new tool or new version of an old tool that scratches that itch.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
They aren't the same. You can combine them (somewhat) but you still know
VBA.NET
C#.NET
VCC.NET
et al.
> Is there anything actually wrong with the NT6.1 Kernel?
I could never understand that reasoning. You seem to be saying: "XP works, and does everything you need, but Vista does not really suck all that bad. So we should all upgrade right away."
Why not just stay with XP? Vista means more hardware, and less compatibility. Or, am I missing something?
Killing MinWin, in order to turn Windows 7 into Vista plus some more bloat, is pretty much the end of the product line. By the time it's out, people will have the choice of an even more bloaty Microsoft offering or ReactOS (free GPL Windows) which will have become stable and usable by this stage. Most commercial software is tooled to be compatible back to Windows 2000 (and often back to Windows 98), so a stable ReactOS will be sufficient and, unlike Windows 7, exceptionally trim. Currently, a ReactOS vmWare image is all of 22M and is already capable of running complex software for Windows such as Mozilla's collection. Even if you treble that size for 2-3 years more ReactOS development and it'll still perfect for getting the most out of your hardware, even down to the smallest UMPC. The bloated bohemoth that is a MinWin-free Windows 7 will be slaughtered like a stuck pig.
THIS is what XP was like. I guess MS is really slipping if Vista's supposed to be the new Win2k.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Would it make more sense to subscribe to windows, then have windows just evolve? Instead of these painful, and silly, "upgrades?"
... that there will be no minikernel in Windows 7?
The article summary is totally bogus. Nowhere in the article does it say that MinWin has been removed from Win7, because it hasn't, I assure you. Everyone here is jumping to conclusions.
It's clear (to me, at least) that Steve Sinofsky was made boss of Windows development more for his mastery of spin than his technical skills. Exhibit A: the C|NET interview with Ina Fried. Any politician reading this masterpiece of doublespeak will turn emerald green with envy, and I defy anyone here to distill any meaning out of his long, rambling answers to Fried's questions. Fried begins to get exasperated about two-thirds of the way through ["It sounds like you're saying"..."If I'm understanding correctly"..."seemed like you were saying"...], and attempts to pin him down to solid answers, alas to no avail. Typical example plucked at random:
Granted, Sinofsky is being very cagey about not revealing specifics, but I've gotta say that the man displays real skill at saying nothing in a very long-winded fashion. He could have been the White House press secretary. I think Steve Jobs and many, many posters on Slashdot were correct in saying that the marketing people have gained ascendancy over the engineers at Microsoft.
After reading through that disaster of an interview, if I were Balmer, I'd start finding reasons to fire Mr. Sinofsky. The man has ably shown that he is incapable of leadership. If billg, who really is the public face of MS, says next year, then you have a three way choice. 1) You say next year and make it happen. 2) You say not next year and you give damned good valued based reasons. That it's not in the schedule is not a reason, people change schedules all the time. 3) You say not next year, give no reason and simply screw the public face of your company. Which is what he did. Mr. Sinofsky shouldn't be let out of the closet. Fire him.
Nowhere does he say there will be no "MinWin". It's entirely possible Vista compatibility will be built on top of MinWin. Not sure what the basis for the article summary is.
Hey guys - I'm a program manager on the Windows Server team, and having been a long-time lurker on slashdot, wanted to point to the most cogent public explanation of what MinWin is.
Eric Traut's speech at UIUC got a lot of attention but has been largely misinterpreted. The interview at http://edge.technet.com/Media/567/ explains the relationship between Server Core and MinWin, and if you're interested in the subject matter, is worth watching (at the very least, for the inadvertent use of night vision by the cameraman).
Brendan
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Tell us all about how it'll work and everything will be just great. Pleeeeze. I was just talking with someone who has factory installed Vista and how SP1 would not install because of a Vista driver already installed isn't "compatible" with the update. He then told a story of how he installed a new Vista driver which didn't work but allowed SP1 to install and then re-installing the original Vista driver got sound working again.
It's all marketing-speak from the same old Microsoft we've known for 20 something years. yawn.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I think that WinFS is probably off the list permanently. There was never a lot of information on it that I could find. But it wasn't -- except for one brief period in 2005 or so -- touted as a file system as we usually think of a file system (e.g. ext3 or NTFS). Instead, it seems to have been replacing heiarchial file system search and select with metadata search and select.
... If it had worked. My guess is that it didn't. And I'd further guess that's because the metadata (what kind of file, content, etc) proved to be too meager, erratic, and hard to work with for ordinary users.
Not a bad idea with desktop system file counts in the hundreds of thousands. A better file search would be a good thing, I think. I, and most everyone else spends entirely too much time trying to find files.
If anyone actually knows, I'd like to hear about it. And so, I suspect, would others.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
All they need to do is virtualise GDI, and run Win32 and Win16 apps in a "Classic" subsystem...
- Well, that's a great question.
- There are a number of elements of the question...
- In a way that's a different question.
- What I think I want to say is what I just said...
- I didn't actually say that.
I know that I've just pulled some quotes out of context and sometimes that makes things look worse than they are, but does anyone else see my problems? Do you have a hard time even reading the answers? Very disappointing but, again not unexpected of Microsoft.KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
10.4 and earlier supports the Classic runtime, which is theoretically capable of running applications built according to Inside Macintosh circa 1983. Of course, things have changed a lot in the intervening 25 years, so most applications won't be compatible (Classic doesn't support FPU and many traps/managers have been eliminated), but the facility is there.
you had me at #!
The guy's an engineer, but he's talking like a politician. He is not actually saying anything. He did not answer even one question. He's just spewing out empty word shells. (Not even minding the fact that he uses the word "really" in just about every sentence.) If I ever get into a position where I have to behave like that, I'm gonna kill myself. I couldn't look at myself in a mirror.
I'll confess, I'm a MS hater. I could just care less, but these guys have brought so much shit upon the world, there can be no ignoring them. I'm always hoping for something that will challenge my opinion of them, but whatever news there are from MS always just manages to undermine my perception of MS as a big bunch of spineless, soulless, greedy children.
Microsoft knows what would be useful to their users... so they advertise that.
Microsoft also knows what makes money for Microsoft... so they implement that.
First, let's be precise: MinWin was about a minimum Windows build, not just the kernel. Many of the features would be stripped out (potentially to be added for extra cost for each feature - like a subscription model OS) and the result was to be minimum footprint that they talked about being the core for their embedded OS (IIRC - someone will correct me if wrong).
MinWin would be advantageous to users in terms of better performance, less system requirements and increased reliability due to fewer features, enabled by default, to be potential avenues of compromise.
A bloated OS is beneficial to Microsoft in terms of greater "lock-in" for users, creation of default standards controlled only by Microsoft and DRM to guarantee that anything not sanctified by Microsoft cannot run under Windows.
So what can you expect from the next OS release by Microsoft? It sure ain't MinWin!
Seriously, Micrsofties. Don't you feel stupid masturbating in tandem to all the Windows 7 pronouncements when it's clearly Microsoft's ploy to distract everyone from the Chrome Turd of Vista? Doesn't this remind you of anything? Like how Vista was going to fix all the ills of XP? Or how XP was going to fix ME? Do you see a pattern? Microsoft copies so much from Apple, they couldn't resist copying Apple's Copland debacle. But once wasn't good enough. Microsoft made vapourware and integral part of it's business plan, and no one seemed to notice.
Fiat Homos et Pereat Theos
Why does Mono exist? Easy. it exists to infect as many other products with Microsoft-licensed specifications and software. They can't buy 'em out, but they can patent them to death.
It is certainly a huge undertaking for Miguel and the rest of Bill's catamites to spread Microsoft-owned, Microsoft-patented technology and specifications even into orthogonal projects like Free Software and Open Source.
No, 98 was not a step in the right direction; it prolonged the agony of DOS-based systems. The right direction was only stepped in with Windows 2000, AKA NT5. Ditching DOS in favor of NT was right, and IMHO should have started in the gentle distinction-blurring way of ME/2K (and losing NT branding) back at 98; XP (where all systems were NT-based) should have been done and into SP2 with NT 5.0, ca. 2000 C.E..
What makes it Windows 7? Did they add lens flare to the shiny buttons? Did we get a 32 bit integer to store the value of specularity for each button? More importantly, will I need a new monitor to be able to appreciate the awesome shininess?
What functions DOES Windows 7 have that make my life better and easier? Why in hell should I switch from XP? With 2 GB of RAM and a dual core processor on XP it runs fast. On Vista it ran OK. OK is not worth two hundred bucks. They promised me Longhorn, all I got was bull.
Nope, you're not the only one. I'm switching from sysadmin to go do multimedia school next year (but in management, not production.)
Vista is so complex that normal users and even sysadmins are suffering. While I'm that navigating through the labyrinth that is Vista's various control panels and settings gets easier with time, it mainly shows an almost total lack of communication between the various development teams at Microsoft.
I also imagine that Microsoft's lack of direction is making them panic. Kicking out various managers, like Allchin, but keeping king size buffoons like Ballmer only make the situation worse. Not knowing how they can improve on the disaster that is Vista, they variously try to copy:
a) Google,
b)Apple,
and when the going gets really rough, even
c) Linux.
The touch screen thingamabob they demoed today must have Apple employees laughing so hard they must be crying. If you think that Vista has enormous hardware requirements, and it really does, can you imagine what that touch screen thingy will require, which is in reality, just Microsoft trying to do a vapourware job on Apple.
The problem is that the media have grown up (partly at least). No one is going to fall for MS vapourware until Microsoft produces concrete implementations on commodity hardware. Apple's iPhone can do all that on an embedded CPU...
Vista is proof, and Windows 7 will be more proof, that M$ has no real idea on how to write OS code. They are still using the same NT kernel that is nothing more than modified OS/2 code. I bet if you look at the full code it will have comments that say OS/2 or IBM. And there is probably one line of code left in there from OS/2 that nobody at M$ has any idea of what it does or how it works. All they know is if you remove that line the OS fails to work.
Windows is as solid as quicksand.
Switch to Linux instead, like everyone else who have brain is doing.
By contrast, I've sat at dozens of Vista machines (I used to install internet) and found them consistently: slow, resource hogging, confusing in layout, and unstable (call it tilt-bits, DRM, bloat, or whatever you like; the experience is what it is).
So go ahead and argue that Server 08 has a great kernel and that Vista's is no different, but the glaring reality is that the Vista experience is teaching millions about PTSD, and until MS starts pricing Server 08 for the desktop, they don't really have a product to offer the desktop user.
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
its not that linux doesn't work, its that folks like "robdude" are too stupid to use it. While the rest of the world continues to find linux useable and a valuable tool for solving all sorts of folks needs and applications, robdude has yet to install one successfully, even when personally assisted. I think its best we let him run vista.
robdude has been personally assisted by many folks and while he may claim that incompatibility prevents him from using it, the main incompatibility is with his droolingly stupid ass and linux's requirements for basic literacy. Even once a linux is successfully installed on robdude's system, he manages to make it inoperable in short order. Some folks just need to stay with windows.
I installed Dapper Drake a while ago, in a dual boot machine, and my wife ended up using Windows because many key applications didn't just work. I recently installed Hardy Heron in our new computer, no windows, and most things have worked right away or are a google/download away. My wife hasn't asked me to install Windows at all. She was saying that she was happy with it. It is truly amazing how much it improved in so little time. Give it another try. :)
Kill off XP, and remove the only feature worth waiting for in Windows 7!
By ${DEITY}, they'll stop at nothing to sell VISTA!
that he couldn't get linux to work.
Some folks will never be able to run linux, they think of computers as this vague television looking thing that torments them with error messages and unless their keyboard is waterproof, they'll soon be out of action as the puddle of corrosive drool gathers everywhere within the proximity of their slack open mouth and uncomprehending dull stare.
"Robdude" would be best served staying with windows.
Champaign is the city in Illinois. Champagne (DOC) is the French sparkling beverage.
you had me at #!
Guaranteed revenue stream... protection money... ;)
you had me at #!