With the increasing use of computers in today’s world, the need for up-to-date and compatible computer applications, especially operating systems, continues to grow to meet the ever-increasing variety of computer use, as well as the technological demands of both home and the world. Software giant Microsoft has pioneered the creation of the Windows computer system, which is the most widely used commercial operating system today. But the challenge never seems to stop for Microsoft.
In a recent talk at the University of Illinois, Eric Traut, one of Microsoft’s operating system design engineers, unveiled the next step in the evolution of the Windows kernel. He gave an interesting demonstration of what the next version of the popular operating system would look like. With the help of a team of some 200 computer engineers, he developed innovations in many of the key features of Windows, such as virtualization technology such as Virtual PC and Virtual Server, the boot sequence, memory management, and core programming of the computer. kernel. Although the development of the newest Windows package is an ongoing effort, Traut managed to demonstrate how the next Windows would improve current versions of the computer’s operating system program and integrate recent computer technology, such as multiple CPU cores, virtual machine and other improvements.
Codenamed Windows 7, the next newest version epitomizes Microsoft’s determination to integrate recent advances in computing technology. Its codename is derived from Microsoft’s internal operating system numbers: the first of which is Windows NT, Windows 3.1, Windows “Classic” or Windows 92, Windows NT 5 or Windows 2000, Windows NT 5.1 or Windows XP and Windows NT 6 or Windows Vista. You can actually check the “NT number” of the version of Windows you’re using by typing “winver” at a command prompt on any of these operating systems.
During the demo at the University of Illinois, Traut showed a stripped down version of Windows 7 called “MinWin” that showed just the core kernel and demonstrated how Windows NT runs “naked,” so to speak, without the interface to disguise it, but just as a simple web server that would display simple HTML pages, some of which illustrated the “MinWin” demo’s task list and properties. During the demo, Traut showed how different tasks are executed, most of which are familiar to computer users, such as smss.exe, csrss.exe and svchost.exe, as well as the mini web server httpsrv.exe. Using Virtual PC, Traut was able to demonstrate how Windows 7 runs and its system requirements, such as 25MB of disk space (compared to 14GB for a full Vista installation) and 40MB of RAM.
However, Windows NT is still a continuous development. More importantly, it enabled Microsoft software developers to address problems in the Windows operating system and allowed them to make necessary improvements to the kernel and virtual machine technology without risking backward compatibility and resource management. As a result, it was possible to fix, improve performance, and maximize the use of a higher level of computer hardware technology, but still be able to run multiple versions of Windows. Microsoft believes that with these enhancements the power of computing technology will continue to increase and improve the operating system kernel and other server applications. Truly, Windows NT 7 is an idea whose time has come.
