Windows 8 to feature stripped-down kernel, built-in virtualization

http://www.itworld.com/virtualization/189289/windows-8-hyper-v-and-minwin-game-changing-strategy

by jfruh • 15 years ago

97 63 15 years ago

brudgers5• 15 years ago

Virtualization makes a lot of sense as the basis for an OS - instead of organizing projects into files and directories and trying to manage those with a master OS - just run a new instance of the OS for each project and access just the relevant resources - most of the stuff on a typical user's desktop machine is often irrelevant to the task at at hand. A new VM for a specific project allows the user to save state - work on the draft of the TPS report for an hour, then shut down that virtual machine; come back a week later and everything is just as you left it - same open files, same running programs, everything just the way you want it.

In some ways it's the equivalent of tabbed browsing or application windowing - virtualization of the OS creates efficiency by dealing with multiple divergent contexts at the same time.

AndrewDucker4• 15 years ago

Except that, while working on their TPS report they opened a browser window to check some figures. And they bookmarked the site they found.

And then they moved onto a different project, and their browser bookmark wasn't there.

And now they're not happy, because Windows lost their stuff.

(Because very little of what most people do can be compartmentalized that much - and Windows is great because it allows you to multitask, which you can't do if everything is in a different VM.)

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

Why are their bookmarks not cloud synced? Virtualization makes even more sense when you push as much as makes sense to the cloud, include things like personalization settings.

brudgers5• 15 years ago

Some things will - as they are today - be stored in the cloud [edit or its local equivalent using WCF]. While bookmarks may be one of them - many of the items I bookmark when I'm actually working on a project rather than procrastinating on HN et al., are pretty project specific. And of course, having HN et al. in its own virtual machine would allow all those idea bookmarks to be stored in one place relevant to their useful context rather than relevant to a file system which I have to keep organized (assuming I bother with organization).

Most people don't keep their filing system very organized and when it comes to bookmarks even less so. Context is often a more efficient way of recalling what you did than a directory name - particularly over longer periods of time such as several months.

And of course, you can multitask across virtual machines - I often have two or three open at once because I need access to software which runs on a legacy version of Windows and I run Facebook in it's own exclusive VM.

At the same time I will be working on a project on the host OS. And there is no need for interconnection between any of them.

And VM's solve a lot of legacy issues, cross platform compatibility issues (e.g. windows phone apps) and Microsoft has already developed methods of integrating VM's with the host (see Windows Virtual PC and XP mode integration).

thorwawy99• 15 years ago

we are talking VM's... not multiboot. you can have many VMs(applications) open at once time. those application have access to the shared disk and other resources. have you seen parallels? the user would not change workflow _at all_. they dont know their app is now in a VM.

reustle• 15 years ago

Would this type of virtualization prevent me from needing to have multiple copies of the os for each VM? I'd love to have multiple projects completely separated, without having 10 ubuntu server VMs. Maybe I'm just better off using virtualenv.

rwmj3• 15 years ago

You probably want Linux containers (LXC). Or you can use KVM and get some memory sharing benefit by enabling KSM.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-kernel-sha...

pointyhat3• 15 years ago

Just use virtualenv. It's what virtualization should be!

Virtualization should not be at the hardware level - that's just retarded and another unnecessary product.

FooBarWidget• 15 years ago

None of those features require OS virtualization.

marshray2• 15 years ago

Exactly. We were sold "process isolation" and "virtual memory" back with the 386 chip and Windows NT. But the actual effective security was squandered for the sake of convenience and compatibility. OSes didn't really want to share the hardware in any meaningful way.

The current demand for virtualization is, to a significant degree, an attempt by admins to get control of their own hardware back from Microsoft. Putting MS back in charge of the lowest layer hypervisor seems like it could sort of defeat the purpose. Or maybe they'll play nice this time?

brudgers5• 15 years ago

No specific requirements for the way in which something is implemented is the very nature of Turing machines.

rimantas• 15 years ago

OS X Lion (10.7) in fact does implement something similar. http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.a...

jesboat• 15 years ago

have you seen qubes os?

runjake3• 15 years ago

Qubes OS strives to accomplish something very similar to what you mention. Joanna Rutkowska is one of the project founders.

http://qubes-os.org/Home.html

politician2• 15 years ago

The cynic in me says that this is just hype that'll go the way of Longhorn/WinFS by the time they ship.

watmough2• 15 years ago

They already have a lightweight core running, they've reduced usage for idle machines, and they've had vx in server versions for ages.

Hopefully it will stay, at least in the higher end consumer packages at least. Definitely looking forward to Windows 8.

sixothree• 15 years ago

The cynic in me says: See XP Mode.

glhaynes2• 15 years ago

Sounds battery-expensive.

js4all3• 15 years ago

It would be much better for Windows, if it would be based on a BSD kernel instead of using a newly developed kernel. Legacy apps could then be executed using virtualization. Doing so Microsoft would have a lot of capacity to improve their windowing system and desktop on top. This would also open Windows for serious software development.

daeken5• 15 years ago

This is not a new kernel, and there is absolutely no way in which moving to a BSD kernel would solve anything at all.

The NT kernel in and of itself is very small, simple, and remarkably well designed. The Win32 subsystem is what is horrid, and that's 99.9% in userspace. There's no reason that they can't create a whole new subsystem along side Win32 where they improve everything, but I don't see that happening.

js4all3• 15 years ago

MinWin is a new kernel and the old NT kernel has nothing to support virtualization.

MarkPNeyer• 15 years ago

a bsd kernel would make a lot of devs happy to switch back to windows.

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

> The NT kernel in and of itself is very small, simple, and remarkably well designed.

Is there current documentation on that? I remember NT3 had a very microkernel-ish design, but I have also read that a lot of its elegance was compromised since NT4.

runjake3• 15 years ago

Some points regarding your comment:

1. Some of us have the preposterous notion that the NT kernel is superior and more modern than the BSD kernel.

2. The NT kernel architecture is not new by any means. It's mature and robust.

3. Whats wrong with their windowing system? The DWM is pretty speedy, efficient, and stable.

4. "This would also open Windows for serious software development"?! It's currently the number one consumer (some, including me, might argue iOS actually is), and the number one business and server OS. How much farther ahead of the pack does it need to be before you'd consider it "serious"?

munchhausen• 15 years ago

Where did I hear this before...ah, yes, I remember now:

Stripped-down 'MinWin' kernel to be at the core of Windows 7 and more http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/stripped-down-minwin-ker...

Umofomia• 15 years ago

MinWin is not so much a product as it is a continual effort starting with Vista to untangle dependencies and move unnecessary cruft out. It's still the NT kernel, only progressively cleaner with each additional release of Windows.

watmough2• 15 years ago

Here's a great Coding Horror article on shrinking Windows XP. Jeff got it down to a 243 MB compressed image, for an XP virtual machine.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/creating-smaller-vi...

Really cool stuff.

edit: s/XP/NT/

stock_toaster2• 15 years ago

I wonder if more pervasive os level virtualization for windows would allow them to 'virtualize' some of the legacy APIs and provide a means for moving their apis forward/cleanup/etc while still maintaining their backwards compatibility.

JadeNB• 15 years ago

This is explicitly mentioned in the article:

> In theory, by running all legacy applications virtualized you'd get rid of legacy components and security issues that plague Windows OS today

(There's no mention of the 'but' that one seems to sense coming when a sentence starts with "In theory"; perhaps they just refer to the perhaps-infeasible effort it would take to implement this.)

eru• 15 years ago

Don't they already do this partly? Especially when running old 16-bit programmes.

stock_toaster2• 15 years ago

Ah. Mayhaps. I thought they did that with some custom api translation, but I could indeed be wrong.

brudgers5• 15 years ago

That's what XP mode does out of the box. I run my really stinking old version of Quickbooks through it.

ComputerGuru• 15 years ago

The problem with Windows has never been with the kernel. The NT kernel is (mainly) fast, secure, and modular. In a study of pros and cons, it will compare favorably with other kernels of today.

Windows' problem is, has always been, and promises to continue to be, purely in userland. The userland is bloated and without focus; it reeks of design by committee, is riddled with security issues stemming from design of userspace and user interaction requirements, and by-and-large simply lacks a unifying theme/purpose for the OS itself.

damoncali• 15 years ago

What does this allow me to do that I couldn't before? (Serious question - this article is over my head).

oskee80• 15 years ago

I really like the new look of explorer with the ribbon: http://www.itworld.com/sites/default/files/HyperV-11-600.png

Wish I could get that on Win7.

kogir• 15 years ago

If the performance is acceptable, I'd love to do all of my daily Windows work from a VM... on a removable drive I can boot with no fuss on my desktop, laptop, or friends' computer.

If they can really isolate all the hardware this is a game changer for me. I'll just move my SSD seamlessly between various PCs at home and work. Epic win.

Don't dimiss this as a power user feature just yet. Imagine going on vacation and taking one computer for your family, not 4. Get a new computer? Don't "migrate" with current solutions, move everything with full fidelity. Keep your own personal OS for use at internet cafes. Change the form factor of your computer at will.

aaronblohowiak3• 15 years ago

> I'll just move my SSD seamlessly between various PCs at home and work

Even better: you just plug in your phone to the current workstation. Also, your phone has the ability to read all your documents.

buu700• 15 years ago

I had a dual-boot setup like this on an external drive with Windows and Linux when I was in high school. It was pretty useful whenever I needed to use one of the school computers. Not seriously game-changing, mind you, but somewhat convenient (more pleasant and useful than portable apps).

encoderer• 15 years ago

My development machine is Windows7. I do web and systems development in Python, PHP, etc.

All of my development is done on Ubuntu and CentOS VMs running in VirtualBox.

My actual IDE is often Eclipse (or Eclipse based) and I just make an SSH/SFTP connection to each virtualbox and the coding is treated as a "remote project" in Eclipse.

When I retire this Sony Vaio, I'm really thinking I'll get a 15" Macbook. Just for variety. There was a time when I'd never have dreamed of that. I bill a high hourly rate, I cannot be fumbling around because I'm on an unfamiler OS.

But I could switch to a Mac in 60 minutes. Downnload a JVM and VirtualBox for OSX, move over all my VM images, and I'm done. Back to work.

I chose Windows 7 because IMO it's the best OS available for me. I enjoy it. I never have reliability issues. I find I usually go 30, 40 days between restarts. It's nice I have this option: the chip and OS makers have really done a smashing job on visualization technology over the last decade.

quattrofan• 15 years ago

So my question is why not throw away Windows, start from scratch and build new state of the art OS and then HV for backward compatibility?

Windows 8 to feature stripped-down kernel, built-in virtualization

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