MinWin: a "small" preview of the Windows 7 kernel

We've had thoughts on a lighter version of Windows for mobile computers in the past and I'd say there's hope yet. Not with Vista, but beyond as in Windows 7. Long Zheng clipped an 8 minute section of video showing a Microsoft internal build of a basic Windows kernel, aptly named MinWin. Why is that a descriptive name? Well, the disk footprint is a scant 25 MB and it only uses 40 MB of memory to run. Before you get too excited, bear in mind this is a very stripped down code base and in the demo it was only running a basic web server. Still, if some effort is put into modular functionality that's needed on low powered mobile devices along with a simple and effective user interface, this could be just the shot that Windows-based handheld computers need. The question is: will it be too late due to Linux-based MIDs?

(via Download Squad)

Comments

[Mike Cane]

MinWin is a cool name. I still like mine: Windows Express (or eXPress).

[Chris K]

It's never too late for a stripped down Windows. Package in just what you need to support apps, ditch a TON of extra services, and keep it so bloody simple that it's suddenly lightning fast, and you can still run any Wintel apps that you want. The only thing you might need to really change instead of removing it entirely are a few of the support services for Windows Update, but if you can cram the OS into a tiny fraction of flash, you can take advantage of your SSD IO rates to abandon the more intensive indexing procedures, which will further free up cycles for the important stuff, like actually browsing the web, writing a document, and watching/listening to your media.

All that said, a lightweight, low-CPU, well designed indexing system would still be useful when reading through a massive pool of data, but that's something that should be done only when you're adding files, and not some sort of periodic passive background scan that kills your application response when you need it the most.