Can I expect from WindowsVienna and WinMin will remove the feature of Registr and can work on files and folder sjudt like any other Unix Based systems?

Most likely not in this version, since it's based off Windows Vista.

Why would you the registry replaced by a set of files? Not that in the end the registry is not a file.

I'm no expert but as I understand it the registry is a centralised repository that keeps tabs on everything on the hard drive that makes programs run. Sounds ok in theory but it also becomes an easy target for viruses to hit, being in one location. It's also becomes a cluttered, untidy place too because when you remove a program (for instance) it doesn't always remove everything it should, so you get an ever growing registry that contains info. no longer relevant. This slows windows down even further over time.

A file based system however is more 'modular' making it easier to move/copy programs from one computer (say a desktop to a laptop) to another, because 'specific' files themselves would contain all the necessary location information. This also makes the system inherently safer against virus attack.

Windows and IE seems to need a much more modular approach generally. Its a shame MinWin wont be part of Windows 7.

One question. Why in 2008 does windows still need defrag?

Looking forward to seeing what gets doen with the stripped down Kernel. I don't see the registry vanishing as such... maybe undergoing some kind of change. Wheny ou think about it, a UNIX user's home directory and /etc,/dev etc. are pretty much a registry as well.

Defrag is more a result of the file system than the kernel... NTFS installed with (default) larger clusters tends to fragment. If you cut the cluster size down, you need to defrag less. MS could probably move to a journaled file system like UNIX/Linux and eliminate defragging, but you do end up with a lot of wasted space using journalling (all the clusters used by the journal and index), and if your journal gets corrupted, it's pretty much over for the file system (ask a Mac user who's had it happen). 6 of one, half a dozen of the other...

Just a follow up on the defrag issue from previous comments.

Even if a journaled file system (like ext3) took up a little extra space, what is that these days with the massive hard drives that are common place? Surely this kind of file system is the better option as you eliminate forever the need to continually maintain windows by using defrag.

The sort of 'user' involvement we have now in the basic running and efficiency of windows should be unnecessary.

To me, the windows os should be powerful but simple. Like removing programs. The user should only have to drag the program folder to the recycle bin and that should be all it takes to remove everything - FULL STOP. Simple - Powerful - Elegant.

As a windows user I want a 'minimalist' approach to everything and not have to get SO involved with the detail.

These types of small improvements to windows, IMHO, would give windows the much sort after 'wow' factor it so sadly misses today.

I say that a journaled file system would really be the best option to go with. I am running Mac and I enjoy the luxury of not defragging and not having viruses. Screw the wasted space!!!

"Its a shame MinWin wont be part of Windows 7. "

Wait. What?

So why am I waiting for 7? Wasting time? Time to move on. :/

Mire read the article.

Article:
"MinWin is a stripped down version of the Windows kernel that will be used as the foundation for Windows Vienna."

Windows Vienna is Windows 7.

Just a quick response to the file system ideas raised earlier - sure, Windows could migrate to a journaled file system... or even just provide kernel-level drivers for a journaled file system and allow users to choose their own (like they used to do - FAT32 or NTFS, just add ext3 or HTFS to the options)... of course, this being Microsoft, they prefer to stick with MS-supported file systems.

Having used journaled systems extensively, I'm not entirely sure I trust them more than any other system, the convenience of the journal aside... the major difference being if I use NTFS and my file system or index gets corrupted, I can fix it and retrieve any uncorrupted data. If I use a journaled system and my *journal* gets corrupted, I can't do a thing, not even rescue my data, because its location and state was kept where? Why, in the journal, which can be toasted by even a single tiny unchecked write error (like, for example, from a piece of faulty RAM). My only option is to reformat my hard drive. Even corrupted indices in an indexed file system don't generate this kind of irretrievable data loss. Having lost ext3 and Apple file systems in the past (not due to hardware failure, due to *journal* failure, probably due to environmental factors), I much prefer something that can can at least be rescued, even if it does mean defragging every now and then. As for viruses, that's not really an OS or kernel problem, that's an architecture issue. If OSX and Linux had 86% of the home PC OS market, you'd probably see a lot more common viruses for them.

Aaron - I totally agree with you that virus vulnerabilities are an architectural issue. Can you please explain how market share affects an OS architecture? What is the relation between the two?

I'm not relating market share to actual platform architecture, just to prevalence of exploits and malware. Sorry if that was unclear.... I probably should have said a platform issue as opposed to an architecture issue. Slip of the brain.

Stop thinking hard drives and start thinking flash chips and flash hard drives and then you'll understand the design. Intel and Western Digital already have 160GB flash hard drives for laptops. And newer laptops from Dell already support booting from flash chips. Think outside the box and you'll see the reason and the performance benefit here. Shrink the O/S Kernel and put it on a flash chip on the system and not on the hard drive. Your system will boot in seconds with flash technology...

the article is only 2 paragraphs long, yet most of you still didn't read it..... based on some of the comments in here

@ Jeff

Flash hard drives are faster, but can't take the amount of write and access that today's users do with their hard drives.

Well, they can, but not without being EXTREMELY expensive.

Why all the talk of using a journaled file system instead of NTFS? NTFS is in fact a journaling file system as of version 3.0 (Optional in Windows 2000 - USN Journal). With Vista though, they added Transactional NTFS which makes data loss rare if not impossible in most cases.

So.....no more defrag?

I don't think journaling has anything to do with defrag. Fragmentation occurs on all systems although some are less prone to it.

File fragmentation is not the only cause of slow access to file data anyway, it's also related to the organisation of files on the disk. If an app needs 100 files all over the drive it's the same as needing 1 file split into 100 fragments.

Putting those files in the same place helps a lot. Hope that helps.

@Kev, if you want a system that uses files to keep system settings, head on back to Windows 3.1 which used a series of .ini files to keep system settings. It was a horrible failure as they often go lost, rewritten, corrupted, etc.
About the Flash VS hard drive argument, guys, stop thinking either of those, start thinking ROM or MRAM (Magnetic RAM). If you put a system on ROM and use a hard drive just for storage, you completely eliminate boot time (it's like bringing your system out of sleep), it keep viruses out (as they can't write themselves to ROM you see), you eliminate defragmentation of system files, and you don't need as much RAM (as the system is already in an equally fast type of memory).
Also NT has been a Journaled file system for quite some time now. As NTFS pointed out earlier, NTFS 3 was journaled. The reason why Mac OS doesn't get fragmented very much (Yes it does fragment, just not usually enough to worry about) is because it keeps from using any empty spaces that are too small for a file. AKA, if say 200 blocks of space are free between these two files on the disk, it won't store a file there unless it takes 200 blocks or less. Windows will stuff as much space as it can with as much data as it can. in theory, Windows has better data contiguity (as the files are all mashed up at the top) but Macs have less fragmentation as they keep all their files whole (most of the time.)
Vista sees very little fragmentation because it's defrag program runs on a schedule at all times, it basically is always defraging itself a little bit at a time. You can start the defrager, start it, completely close it and walk away and it will be done completely in the background. Vista hardly ever gets above about 5% fragmentation (at least in my experience.)
The idea of MinWin is not to make the Kernel itself smaller, but to make it independant of the rest of the system. It's like going back to the 9X systems that ran parallel to DOS, only in this case the command line is 32 or 64 bit and doesn't crash every 15 seconds. The idea is to make it so the Kernel can run all on it's own. The theory is that if you can do this, if one portion of the system fails, the entire system won't bottom up (blue screen) as the kernel is still capible of running without said failed service. It's a reliability thing, not so much a space saver although it does have some advantages in saving memory as it doesn't have to load up ten *thousand* depenant serivices servers in order to work, just what it needs.
*Phew* I think I'm done for a while.

A ROM based operating system reminds me of my first computer 20 years ago - an Atari ST 1020. It had a windows like desktop and was operable as soon as the monitor came on. It also had a built in midi interface for music production. Looking back, it really was amazing for it time.

There was no system bootup required at all. Simply brilliant for its time ... hang on ... wouldn't that be brilliant today too!

Come on Microsoft ...if little companies like Atari and Commodore (Amiga) could do it in 1987 why do we still have all this talk about excessive bootup times in 2008 ?

Well the whole ROM idea was great until you wanted to change it or upgrade it. In Atari's case...you bought a program catridge, just like Xbox, Playstation, Wii. We don't have this because of flexibility.

Now if the Windows 7 Kernel could fit on a Flash ROM Chip and be upgraded in place, that would be cool. As long as we don't have to buy a new computer to run a new O/S. But this is all purely speculation at this point. I'm sure we'll see something cool around the corner! :)

@Jeff
Although I see the water your argument holds, I have ideas in my head (that I don't necessary want to share) that will solve the problem of OS upgrading on a ROM bases system. I also have ideas that will allow customization of the OS while it's on ROM, I borrow from Atari, Commodore, Syllable, and Linux. I do plan on owning one of my own companies one day, look for someone named Link to buy the Commodore name here in the next..... 15-20 years. Look for the worlds fastest OS ever, and look for it to be useful and very intuitive (at least the way it works that is, UI still hasn't been finished, I'm designing my prototype as we speak, sadly custom created chips and boards are *very* expensive).

My biggest pet hate is people who don't bother to spellcheck before submitting their post.There is no need for poor spelling an example is the thread by rohit mishra.Just what is a registr also I have no idea what a sjudt is.Come on people who thread lift your game-or is this an example of the education standards across the globe.Spellcheckers didn't exist when I went to school but now there is no excuse at all.

Let's try to keep on topic, although I do agree it is worth having a decent spelling, or at least check that your post makes sense.

Regarding a ROM os, it's easy enough to flash and update ROMs since they are never really ROMs but EEPROMs and therefore reprogrammable.

Roms tend to be slow and I think the OS these days is way too big for that. I would like to see an 1file os boot option though. All those files being randomly read could be put in one file and then read into memory first (like hibernating in a way).

I use something like that at the moment by using a Ramdisk of 1GB with readyboost. It's very fast (relatively) to load a contiguous 1GB file than loading all those tiny boot files.

After a few seconds of reading that file (best when on a seperate disk to the system drive) the OS boot is largely CPU bound.

Wasn't this thread about minwin?

fyi Pras, ROM memory is equivalant to RAM and can be just as fast if not faster.

As for the OS on ROM option.

An HDD can still be used if manufacturers agree on a standard for a built in 10gb[?] EEPROM dedicated for OS use. This way a computer can have instant on functionality as well as a space for installed programs and other data on the non-eeprom part of the HDD.

With that model you can have two types of HDD. An HDD as we know today and one with a dedicated eeprom for strict OS use.

So what if you have to purchase a specific type of HDD. Most people would like the option to have a main OS in EEPROM for instant on and a secondary OS [if wanted] for other use.

Most tech-heads [myself included] have more than one OS installed on a single machine, with one of them being our main.

Although I see the practicality of having EEPROM built into the HDD, flashing ROM is far from my favorite way of upgrading or otherwise changing data, it's an inexact science and can be dangerous (God forbid there be a power outage while flashing your BIOS). Having ROM interchangeable and separate from the HDD will allow users to preserve their files on a HDD and upgrading the OS will be as simple and fast as changing a RAM chip (ROM chips that fit in RAM chip slots). I was presented with the question "how many people know how to change a RAM chip?" Too which I though, 'how many people that can install a new version of windows don't know how to change a RAM chip. Most people currently use a computer service like Geek Squad to upgrade their OS anyhow.' Having the OS built into a ROM chip that fits in a RAM slot will also eliminate the problems with marking drives as master/slave. RAM is one of the first pieces of hardware besides the BIOS and processor that is started up on a computer, having it built into RAM slots will allow it to also control secondary OS's like a boot loader if you will. I currently have Mac OS 10.5 and Windows Vista installed on my Toshiba so I guess I do fall withing your definition of a tech head XD.

I thought of that option as well, but you would have to purchase a new module every time an update came out. With it on an HDD you don't have to change any hardware other than the new HDD if you want the option for fast boot, and other things.

Wouldn't the cost of the entire HDD along with the built in EEPROM cost more than a single ROM chip? ROM is a very cheap kind of memory, prototype parts that I've gotten costs only 500 dollars so far, considering the uniqueness of the part, that's very cheap. Also changing out HDD would mean that one would have to transfer all the documents and files off their old HDD first, considerably lengthening the upgrade process. Solid State or traditional HDD's are still the slowest parts in a computer, and transfer rates usually don't exceed at maximum 6 megabytes per second on some high end drives. Also SATA (the most popular Bus now) is actually a very tender cable and tends to bend/break easily. It's not my favorite part to work with by far. I also think that minor updates would come as an installer to the standard HDD instead of flashing themselves to the ROM, this would save the customer from buying so many chips (although adding a slight sacrifice of speed).

Oh no... I wasn't meaning replacing the whole disk in the event of an upgrade or security update.

The initial installation would be on the eeprom-hdd but could be user flashed for security updates and such. Only updates that are MS signed and verified would be allowed to be flashed onto the eeprom. In an update manner, only adding new information instead of replacing the entire contents with an updated image.

If you were not able to perform user updates without money, how ever little, what would the difference between MS and apple be?

Again that still leaves the OS with the vulnerability of being flashed, which like I said can be pretty risky for a simple security update. If the ROM is flash able, then couldn't viruses and other security risks be theoretically installed? Also, the way the current Windows system is built, it couldn't be used on ROM, the registry is just too bloated and needs writing too much. The system would need to be 100% overhauled. I'm talking about a Linux based system being applied to these ideas. Linux is far more adaptable and faster as well.

You could get over the virus vulnerability by only allowing an update to be applied while the installation disk is the the dvd-rom drive. The dvd-rom would have the specific securities in place to unlock the eeprom and allow an update to occur.

I do know the registry is a bloated piece of carp. I would like a better system to be used. But for the foreseeable future it's a necessary evil, unless the registry can be stored on the regular HDD storage.

I have a solution worked out for that as well, but because I don't have a patent for it yet, I'd like to not share it just yet.