Windows Vista the last of its kind

[fyire]

Windows Vista the last of its kind
By Matthew Broersma, Techworld

Vista will be the last version of Windows that exists in its current, monolithic form, according to Gartner.

Instead, the research firm predicts, Microsoft will be forced to migrate Windows to a modular architecture tied together through hardware-supported virtualisation. "The current, integrated architecture of Microsoft Windows is unsustainable - for enterprises and for Microsoft," wrote Gartner analysts Brian Gammage, Michael Silver and David Mitchell Smith.

The problem is that the operating system's increasing complexity is making it ever more difficult for enterprises to implement migrations, and impossible for Microsoft to release regular updates. This, in turn, stands in the way of Microsoft's efforts to push companies to subscription licensing.

The answer, according to Gartner, is virtualisation, which is built into newer chips from Intel and AMD, and has become mainstream for x86 servers through the efforts of VMware. "Once Windows includes virtualisation at its core, we expect OS development to change direction from integration to modularisation," the analysts wrote.

Virtualisation is best known as a way of running multiple server instances on a single hardware platform, but it can also be used to run individual operating system functions or applications. The technique isolates the various components from one another, making them easier to manage. Gartner believes Microsoft will use virtualisation to divide the Windows client into a "service partition", controlling system functions such as management and security, and one or more application partitions. Such a path is already being followed in the x86 server world, Gartner said.

"The combination of the service partition and the ability to deliver horizontal functions in software appliances provides the key for unbundling the Windows OS," the analysts wrote. Such an architecture would allow Microsoft to make major development changes to Windows without worrying about disrupting dependencies across the entire operating system. This, in turn, would mean the company could release regular updates, and would make backward compatibility easier.

Next-generation Windows-based partitions "could run in parallel to partitions running kernels with the Vista/NT code base," wrote Gammage, Silver and Smith. They said Microsoft doesn't agree with this vision, saying it's identified problems with integrating data across partitions and creating a consistent user experience. "However, we regard these concerns as only partially founded, and anticipate a key role for virtualisation in the required unbundling of the Windows OS," the analysts said.

Gartner expects a significant update to Vista in late 2008 or 2009 that will add virtualisation (in the form of a component called a hypervisor) and a service partition. The hypervisor will allow more frequent updates, and will make the Software Assurance subscription scheme effectively mandatory for Windows from around 2010, Gartner said. To date, Microsoft's main effort to simplify Windows development, in 2004, was to rebuild Windows into a stack of more than 50 layers, Gartner said.

"Upper layers could have dependencies on lower layers, but lower layers could not be dependent on upper ones," the analysts wrote. "This would allow it to lockdown lower layers when complete and worry less about compatibility changes as it worked up the stack." But this redesign is not enough to ease Microsoft's ongoing development and delivery problems, or the deployment difficulties of enterprises, Gartner said.

From: http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=6718

This one's an interesting read. But what's the chances of this happening soon? Vista's already taken so long, so try to imagine dumping all that and restarting from scratch again

[Adrian Wong]

I think the problem with Vista is that Microsoft has to make it backward compatible with a ton of stuff. I think that involves a lot of testing.

Starting from scratch might actually be faster!

[Dashken]

And modular somemore... where got so easy la.

[ZuePhok]

Originally Posted by Dashken

And modular somemore... where got so easy la.

are you an OS engineer? "=_=

[Dashken]

No, why? I just know that from non-modular to modular is very very troublesome. =_="

[Conquest]

non-modular to modular.. sounds like artificially intelligent

[fyire]

Originally Posted by Dashken

No, why? I just know that from non-modular to modular is very very troublesome. =_="

It'll involve a complete redesign of the thing, needless to say. Interesting thing to read on here is also the Microkernel vs Monolithic kernel arguments, even though that's only a small subset of what the entire thing will involve here.

I guess one of Windows biggest problems that causes it to bloat so much is the need to be backwards compatible. But the backwards compatibility is far from complete. Developers on the Windows platform ought to be very familiar with the .DLL hell. I've known of a hardcore Visual C++ user who dumped the thing entirely and started on Java after having to go through getting the application to run on NT4 Server, Win2k Server. This is one area where a modular approach will be very useful indeed. Having a choice of compability modules that can be selected for installation depending on application needs, instead of everything dumped in.

Originally Posted by Conquest

non-modular to modular.. sounds like artificially intelligent

well, AI's a totally different field altogether. Usually tends to be implemented higher up on the OS stack.