Blogging Ottinger (tim)Microsoft Moves GUI out of Kernel Mode
Ahhhh… it’s good to report things like this, however late.
I can’t remember where I heard about this. Probably either the SlashDot Review or else Engadget podcast. I have a script that sucks out my podcasts and throws them on my Zaurus for the morning and evening commutes. The news isn’t that new, but it’s new to me.
Anyway, whatever the original source (sorry guys) I was very pleased to see that Microsoft wised up and is changing Windows to work more in the way that Unix/Linux/BSD do. They are moving the graphical system out of kernel mode. That is such a smart thing to do. I would like to see them go all the way and make it possible for windows to run window-free. I suppose that would make it a horribly misnamed OS. But anyway, it would be good for server hardware requirements and also would help it survive GUI program errors.
I’m glad to see them moving in the right (linux) direction.
I keep expecting to see better and better things from Microsoft. First Kempin was gone, then C# gets standardized, then IronPython is accepted as a .NET language — they may have started shedding evil.
Of course, the graphical system for the NT family was in user-space long ago, and moved into the kernel for NT 4.0. I remember well seeing bad graphics drivers bring down my servers, and thinking how silly that was.
So it’s good to see MS going back to doing the right thing.
Comment by Jeff Licquia — 2006-January-2 @ 08:04