Is MinWin really the new Windows 7 kernel?
In my post about Windows 7 back in January (“Windows 7 = Vista Release 2?), I ended with a statement that deserves some follow-up - Those who are predicting that Windows 7 will include some radically stripped-down kernel (the so-called MinWin project) or a new file system are missing the point completely.
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1.4.2008 Looking beyond XP SP3 and Vista SP1 - Understanding the MinWin Kernel in Windows 7
In terms of new releases on the Windows client front, Microsoft is cooking the first Service Pack for Windows Vista and the third and final Service Pack for Windows XP.
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18.12.2007 New Kernel for Vista SP1, New Kernel for Windows 7
Microsoft is simply spoiling its users when it comes down to the evolution of the core of the Windows client.
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20.3.2008 MinWin is in Windows 7, after all
MinWin — the core of the Windows operating system — is, indeed, in Windows 7. It’s just not part of it in the way many people (including yours truly) initially assumed.
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3.11.2008 MinWin: Is it part of Windows 7?
Is it a concept? a new operating system kernel? a floor wax? a dessert topping?) — and how/whether it will be part of Windows 7 is still rampant, a week after Microsoft “communicated” about Windows 7 via a Q&A with News.com.
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2.6.2008 Eric Traut talks and demos Windows 7 and MinWin
If I told you there was a public presentation and arguably demonstration of Windows 7, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Which is why I had to share this video with you.
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19.10.2007 Microsoft Partners: MinWin Could Soothe Vista Headaches
In the year that has passed since Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist.
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3.12.2007 Inside the Windows Vista Kernel: Part 1
This is the first part of a series on what's new in the Windows Vista kernel. In this issue, I'll look at changes in the areas of processes and threads, and in I/O. Future installments will cover memory management, startup and shutdown, reliability and recovery, and security.
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21.1.2007 Windows 7 Kernel version remains unchanged - still 7.0
A lot of confusion was generated today as several news sites reported about a spotting of an MSDN page indicating that the Windows 7 kernel version was 7.0 and not 6.1. An interview conducted by Neowin in October 2008 with Mike Nash also caused some misinterpretation.
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22.4.2009 Microsoft patches critical Windows kernel flaw
Microsoft patched critical vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel that could be remotely exploited by an attacker to gain control of a computer. In all three bulletins patching eight Windows flaws were released Tuesday as part of Microsoft's monthly patching cycle.
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11.3.2009 Microsoft to Move Graphics Outside OS Kernel.
Microsoft will move the graphics for its next version of Windows outside of the operating system's kernel to improve reliability, the software giant has told Techworld.
Vista's graphics subsystem, codenamed Avalon and formally known as the Windows Presentation Foundation, will be pulled out the kernel because many lock-ups are the result of the GUI freezing, Microsoft infrastructure architect Giovanni Marchetti told us exclusively yesterday.
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16.12.2005 Kernel Memory Space Analyzer Version 8.1 and guide
Microsoft Support Professionals Toolkit for Windows. The Kernel Memory Space Analyzer is a tool to help expert debugging engineers analyze Windows crash dump files.
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31.8.2006 Microsoft acknowledges Vista kernel elevation vulnerability
What was not supposed to happen in Windows Vista apparently has: Despite a layer of protection that was supposed to prevent against processes elevating their own privileges, Microsoft now says someone found a way to do it.
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15.12.2007 Microsoft junks and replaces Vista kernel in SP1
One of the “big” features discussed in early speculation of Windows Vista SP1 was the kernel upgrade, which was supposed to bring the operating system into line with the Longhorn kernel used in Windows Server 2008.
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5.2.2008 ATI driver flaw exposes Vista kernel to attackers
An unpatched flaw in an ATI driver was at the center of the mysterious Purple Pill proof-of-concept tool that exposed a way to maliciously tamper with the Windows Vista kernel. Thanks to pacpis for this news.
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12.8.2007 Windows 7 to also be version 7 of the Windows kernel?
Almost anyone who has been following the development of Windows 7 knows that it's currently kernel version 6.1.
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20.4.2009 Vista SP1, and then Windows 7, Windows 8 and Non-Windows Midori
2008 saw the release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008, but Microsoft's journey on the Windows path is far from over.
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5.8.2008 Windows 7 RC Brings Windows XP Mode Beta and Windows Virtual PC Beta
The Release Candidate of Windows 7 will bring with it the first Beta development milestones for Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC.
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29.4.2009 Windows Reactivator 2.0 - Backup & Restore Activation Status of Windows XP with Windows Reactivator
Every time you reinstall your windows XP you need to reactivate it online using your product key & worst if you lost your Windows XP product key.
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3.6.2009 Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2
Feb 26th, 2008. Principled Technologies has released two Microsoft commissioned reports on Windows Vista SP1 performance. In these tests, Principled Technologies measured responsiveness of Windows Vista SP1 vs. Windows Vista RTM vs. Windows XP SP2 when performing a set of common business and home tasks.
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28.2.2008 Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9 – 1 Billion and Counting
Is Windows dead? Or, at least, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft's proprietary operating system?
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15.9.2008 Week in Microsoft: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 9
This week in Microsoft, we covered 128-bit support possibly coming to Windows 8 and Windows 9, Windows 7, Windows Mobile 6.5, Bill Gates, Office 2010 Starter, Microsoft MVP status, Windows Live Hotmail, the EU, and Microsoft Security Essentials.
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10.10.2009 Windows Vista Build 5231 and Windows Media Player 11 Leaks!
Windows Vista Build 5231 has leaked to the web. The new build is said to include Windows Media Player 11 included. View the screenshots below! This is a Main branch build that was released on September 12th, 2005 at 8:20PM.
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Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3: Official Release Dates
A French website, PC Inpact, has posted the official Microsoft product change request forms for Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3.
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6.2.2008 Download Free Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 Straight from Microsoft
Via the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image. That's right! Microsoft is offering access to free downloads of Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2.
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6.3.2008 Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copy
"Its interesting that people seem to think that Vista under performs in every area of the system which is quite an incorrect perception.
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27.5.2008 Windows Fiji Has RTMd as Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008
Microsoft officially confirmed that Windows Fiji has been released to manufacturing.
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18.7.2008 Windows 7 Beta Doesn't Play Nice with Windows Azure Cloud OS Tools
The promise for Windows 7 is that it will deliver an evolution when it will come down to stretching into the Cloud compared to its precursor, Windows Vista.
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16.1.2009 Internet Explorer 8 MUI packs for Windows XP, Windows Server 03
As detailed in our previous blog post, the following Internet Explorer MUI packs shipped today.
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17.5.2009 Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta adds Windows 7 support
Microsoft announced the release of Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 Beta, along with news that it will feature Windows 7 support.
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20.7.2009Windows 7 *is* MinWin
A lot of people assume that MinWin is a Microsoft effort to completely rewrite the Windows Kernel from scratch. That may be based on earlier (limited)
explanations about what it does, or it may have a lot to do with people assuming, due to people's efforts with open source software, that
rewriting the kernel will solve all of Windows problems. Well, Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Technical Fellow and guru of all things NT Kernel, attempts
to set the record straight in a 45 minute video from Channel 9. Microsoft also explains that "it *is* indeed in Windows 7." News source:
Windows-Now Video: Microsoft Explains MinWin
Read full
story.....
neowin.net -
04.12.2008'You Already Have MinWin'
We have learnt quite a lot about
Windows 7 this week, and one of the things was that Windows 7
would not get a new kernel. The call for a new kernel has been made a few
times on the internet, but anyone with a bit more insight into Windows' kernel knows that there is absolutely no need to write a new kernel for
Windows - the problems with Windows lie in userland, not kernelland. While the authenticity of the Shipping Seven blog is not undisputed, the blogger
makes some
very excellent points regarding the kernel
matter.
winbeta.org -
30.05.2008Inside "MinWin:" the Windows 7 kernel slims down
Back in 2003, Microsoft assembled a team of engineers to rethink the lowest levels of Windows, so that the OS could be more easily slimmed down and
secured to run in servers and embedded applications. That project, called "MinWin," has now started to bear fruit...
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18.11.2009Mark Russinovich: On Working at MS, Server 2008 Kernel, MinWin vs ServerCore, HyperV and more
Charles Torre: I recently sat down with Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich to dig a bit into what's new in the Windows Server 2008 kernel. Of course,
we talk about many things including HyperV, application virtualization, kernel architecture (not everybody defines an OS kernel in the same way - tune
in to understand why this is the case. Mark has his own definition that may not be the same as yours....).
Recently, the MinWin
project was in the press after a university video lecture by a Microsoft Windows architect was released on the net. Most people immediately confused
MinWin with Windows Server 2008's ServerCore technology - the confusion stems from the incorrect assumption that ServerCore is a byproduct of the
MinWin work. In fact, they are not at all related. Mark explains the differences and hopefully this will end the confusion...
Of
course, Mark spends time on the whiteboard in this interview, drawing out the kernel architecture, explaining HyperV, touching on application
virtualization (running client applications without having to install them locally - tune in to understand what I mean...).
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15.12.2007Is MinWin really the new Windows 7 kernel?
Ed Bott: In my post about Windows 7 back in January (
“Windows 7 = Vista Release 2″), I
ended with a statement that deserves some follow-up:
Those who are predicting that Windows 7 will include some radically
stripped-down kernel (the so-called MinWin project) or a new file system are missing the point completely.
Many of the
articles and blog posts I’ve read about Windows 7 in recent days mention MinWin, usually following up with the observation that it’s the
new lean kernel that’s going to be at the heart of Windows 7. That misinterpretation was widely reported in October, when this story first
appeared, and its become conventional wisdom since then. Australias IDM, for example, included this authoritative-sounding statement in a
March 17 report...
winbeta.org -
01.04.2008MinWin: Is it or isnt it part of Windows 7?
Confusion over exactly what MinWin is Is it a concept? a new operating system kernel? a floor wax? a dessert topping?) and how/whether it will be
part of Windows 7 is still rampant, a week after Microsoft “communicated” about Windows 7
via a Q&A with News.com.
The official word from Microsoft’s
Windows Engineering Chief Steven Sinofsky seems to be that
MinWin the slimmed-down Windows core
many expected to be at the heart of Windows 7 is not going to be part of Windows 7.
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02.06.2008Why MinWin speculation matters
John Carroll: <...> The status of MinWin in Microsofts desktop and server products, however, is not the key reason people are so interested in the
existence of a stripped-down Windows kernel (though it certainly matters, as it might hint at new levels of modularity). Rather, the interest in
MinWin rests more on a realization that more and more embedded devices will share our lives in the future, causing desktop and servers to shrink as a
percentage of the daily computing pie (though just as a percentage; its not so much that we will use desktops and servers less, but that we will use a
lot more embedded devices).
winbeta.org -
04.06.2008Microsoft confirms MinWin is in Windows 7, after all
MinWin the core of the Windows operating system is, indeed, in Windows 7. It’s just not part of it in the way many people (including yours
truly) initially assumed.
Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich, who detailed via a Channel 9 Webcast last week how
Windows 7 would run on up to 256 processors, tackled yet again the MinWin bugaboo during that
same episode.
winbeta.org -
03.11.2008Vista users: "You Already Have MinWin"
We have learnt quite a lot about Windows 7 this week, and one of the things was that Windows 7 would not get a new kernel. The call for a new kernel
has been made a few times on the internet, but anyone with a bit more insight into Windows' kernel knows that there is absolutely no need to write
a new kernel for Windows - the problems with Windows lie in userland, not kernelland. While the authenticity of the Shipping Seven blog is not
undisputed, the blogger makes some very excellent points regarding the kernel matter.
I have written numerous times that there is nothing
wrong with the Windows NT kernel currently powering about 90% of the world's desktops. It provides advanced security features, it's extremely
stable, very portable, and supports just about any piece of hardware in the x86 desktop and server markets. "In conclusion, scrapping Windows NT
would be a pointless exercise. It is a mature, stable, and, yes, secure system by design." I wrote a year ago, "Do not make the mistake of thinking
that simply because Microsoft refused to enforce proper security policies from the get-go, that NT is an insecure system by design."
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31.05.2008Windows 7 to also be version 7 of the Windows kernel?
Most anyone who has been following the development of Windows 7 knows that it's currently kernel version 6.1. But all that is set to change, at
least if an obscure MSDN page is to be believed. In a page describing device installation with the Windows Driver Kit, the documentation shows
"Msft.NT.7.0" being used as a label to specify drivers only for use with Windows 7.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
20.04.2009Eric Traut talks (and demos) Windows 7 and MinWin
Long Zheng: If I told you there was a public presentation and arguably
demonstration of
Windows 7, you probably wouldnt believe me. Which is why I
had to share this video with you.
Thanks to
DigitalDud on Channel9 for noting, on October 13 last week, Microsofts distinguished engineer
Eric Traut gave a
presentation at the University of Illinois about Microsofts virtualization
technology and also mentioned Windows 7 - the next version of Windows after Vista. And believe it or not it was on video. Whilst the presentation is
not directly about Windows 7, it does contain a demonstration of MinWin - an internal project to build the most efficient Windows kernel which will in
turn be used in Windows 7.
The
whole presentation (WMV) goes for approximately 1 hour and includes a very deep look into
hypervisors. Ive clipped out the 8-minute segment which Eric focuses on Windows
7 specifically to make it easier to watch. Because Eric goes into a lot of detail as well as background information about what is presented, and
because its 2AM, I wont regurgitate it. All Ill say is that if you think Windows at its core is bloated, think again.
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18.10.2007Microsoft Partners: MinWin Could Soothe Vista Headaches
In the year that has passed since Microsoft released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a
bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist. But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the
next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down
version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center.
MinWin's source code
base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista. Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned
its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market. "There has
definitely been a huge amount of resistance in the market to Vista, but I think Microsoft has learned a lot from the experience," said Todd
Swank, director of marketing for system builder and solution provider Nor-Tech, Burnsville, Minn. "I also think they realize they waited too long
between the release of Windows XP and Vista."
neowin.net -
03.12.2007Microsoft junks and replaces Vista kernel in SP1
One of the “big” features discussed in early speculation of Windows Vista SP1 was the kernel upgrade, which was supposed to bring the
operating system into line with the Longhorn kernel used in Windows Server 2008. And yet with Vista SP1 going RTM, there hasn't been so much as a
peep from Microsoft about the mooted kernel update. Has it happened? Well the answer is
yes it has, and presumably the main reason for
Microsoft’s silence on the subject is that as they’re keen to promote the improvements and enhancements to Vista, rather than placing
emphasis on a kernel upgrade, which some people might see as a risk of newly-introduced instability.
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
05.02.2008Changes afoot in Vista SP1 RC0/Windows 2008 RC0 kernel memory dumps
With the advent of Windows Vista there are changes made in how the operating system determines if it can take a kernel memory dump or not. Starting
in Vista the amount of memory allocated for kernel mode could vary dynamically. If the pagefile is not big enough, switching to minidump at dump time
cant be done easily. So the dump stack initialization is happening at the time of boot where this check for the pagefile size is done.
What does this mean? It means if you don't have a pagefile as large as physical memory at boot, and your system is configured for a kernel
dump, you'll end up getting a minidump. If you permit me to opine, this makes sense in the client space where a valid dump is more critical than a
corrupted kernel dump, as the results usually would get uploaded to Microsoft via WERCON or another mechanism. If further triage is needed MSFT could
contact you with the ability to setup a kernel capture.
winbeta.org -
16.10.2007Identifying 32-bit Kernel Memory Issues
Clint Huffman: I'm a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) and I go onsite with customers on a regular basis to conduct Health Checks. This is my first blog
posting on TechNet, but I figured it would be on something important versus "Hello World". ;-)
More and more I am seeing
customers who are not aware of kernel memory issues on the 32-bit Windows architecture. If you are running 32-bit Windows 2000 or 32-bit Windows 2003,
then check the kernel memory. Lack of kernel memory can lead to system-wide hangs which seem unexplainable, so this is a serious issue. Always
generally use and/or recommend 64-bit or Windows Server 2008 server to avoid these issues (Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista have automatically
adjusting kernel memory pool sizes). This issue and other performance issues are addressed in the Vital Signs workshop (written by Shane Creamer),
which can be delivered by my team, Premier Field Engineering (PFE) - just contact your Technical Account Manager (TAM) if you are interested in this
course.
Here is a kernel memory chart for Windows 2003 Server...
winbeta.org -
02.10.2007Microsoft Highlights Changes to the Windows Kernel
Attendees at
Microsoft's Windows Hardware
Engineering Conference here
got an in-depth and deeply
technical keynote outlining
the changes to the Windows
kernel and other key areas,
and how partners can take
advantage of these.
In his presentation
on May 16, Mark Russinovich, a
technical fellow in
Microsoft's platform and
services division and the
third keynoter of the day,
talked about how uniprocessor
kernel variants were now gone
from Windows Server 2008,
which reduces the need for
downtime by supporting
hardware configuration changes
without the need to reboot the
system.
The new
server product, which is the
basis for Microsoft's new
virtualization offering, also
introduced a new common
infrastructure called WHEA
(Windows Hardware Error
Architecture)...
winbeta.org -
17.05.2007Microsoft issues out-of-cycle fix for critical Windows RPC fault
If the Vista kernel can't be spoofed, it appears some of its key Internet Protocol kernel drivers can be. An IBM security division discovered the
problem, and this morning, Microsoft issued what it hopes will be a fix...
betanews.com -
09.01.2008Final release of Windows 7 to have kernel version 6.1
fter the web learned earlier this week that the final name of Vista's successor was Windows 7, all hell broke loose. The general consensus was
that Windows 7 wasn't a bad name, but the reasoning behind it wasn't very clear. Many couldn't figure out how Microsoft had reached the
number 7 (I'll give you a hint: they were looking at the kernel version number, instead of counting every single minor and major Windows release).
But then others wanted to know why the current builds of Windows 7 were at kernel version 6.1, not 7.0.
Mike Nash, Corporate VP of Windows
Product Management, chimed in again on the Windows Vista Team Blog with the official explanation:
"So we decided to ship the Windows 7
code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties. There's been some fodder
about whether using 6.1 in the code is an indicator of the relevance of Windows 7. It is not. Windows 7 is a significant and evolutionary advancement
of the client operating system. It is in every way a major effort in design, engineering, and innovation. The only thing to read into the code
versioning is that we are absolutely committed to making sure application compatibility is optimized for our customers."
Read full story.....
neowin.net -
16.10.2008Microsoft to move graphics
outside OS kernel
Microsoft will move
the graphics for its next
version of Windows outside of
the operating system's kernel
to improve reliability, the
software giant has told
Techworld.
Vista's graphics subsystem,
codenamed Avalon and formally
known as the Windows
Presentation Foundation, will
be pulled out the kernel
because many lock-ups are the
result of the GUI freezing,
Microsoft infrastructure
architect Giovanni Marchetti
told us exclusively
yesterday.
The
company has already announced
to developers that most
drivers, including graphics,
will run in user mode - which
means that they don't get
access to the privileged
kernel mode (or Ring 0). At
this level, a process can do
anything it likes, including
overwriting memory that
doesn't belong to it. The
result of such overwriting by
(usually) buggy code is often
a system crash. So the move
should result in greater
reliability, because crashing
drivers cause some 89 per cent
of system crashes in Windows
XP, according to Microsoft.
When run in user mode, they
won't be able to bring down
the entire system...
winbeta.org -
15.12.2005x64 Kernel patch causes random restarts, fix on the way
Microsoft has disclosed that
update 932596, a patch released for the Kernel Patch Protection
feature that is included with x64 versions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008, seems to be causing random restarts on
certain machines. A Stop error is then generated (error code 0x0000001E, 0x000000D1, or another Stop error code). x86 versions of Windows are not
affected since they do not include the Kernel Patch Protection feature (also known as PatchGuard), a technology that is meant to prevent third-party
interventions into the core of the operating system.
winbeta.org -
02.07.2008
