Microsoft To Move Graphics Outside OS Kernel

16 Dec, 2005 at 7:27pm ET Article published in Tech

Microsoft will move the graphics for its next version of Windows outside of the operating system’s kernel to improve reliability. Vista’s graphics subsystem, codenamed Avalon and formally known as the Windows Presentation Foundation, will be pulled out the kernel because many lock-ups are the result of the GUI freezing.

The company has already announced to developers that most drivers, including graphics, will run in user mode – which means that they don’t get access to the privileged kernel mode (or Ring 0). At this level, a process can do anything it likes, including overwriting memory that doesn’t belong to it. The result of such overwriting by (usually) buggy code is often a system crash. So the move should result in greater reliability, because crashing drivers cause some 89 per cent of system crashes in Windows XP, according to Microsoft. When run in user mode, they won’t be able to bring down the entire system.

Source: TechWorld

Comments

16 Dec 2005 ~ 9:07pm Garg Smart idea
16 Dec 2005 ~ 10:49pm drasnor Getting closer to Linux every day.

-drasnor
17 Dec 2005 ~ 1:30am airbornflght And then there was light at the end of the tunnel.

I wonder if these graphics will be locked up, or if you'll be able to change theem out and mod the system more easily?
17 Dec 2005 ~ 5:45am Shorty About damn time
17 Dec 2005 ~ 12:04pm Pumalite some believe a Dinosaur can become a Pegasus.
17 Dec 2005 ~ 2:34pm Garg

Pumalite wrote:

some believe a Dinosaur can become a Pegasus.

Those people are usually on acid.
17 Dec 2005 ~ 5:15pm Camman I bet a lot of issues being resolved are a direct result of the "Send to Microsoft" bug reports. Some people might not agree, but I mean if they can gather information like above saying that 89% of crashes are caused by locking drivers, I mean it must be helpful in isolating problems, so more props to them for that.
18 Dec 2005 ~ 7:51pm BLuKnight Two words for us programmers.. "Low Coupling". It's about time MS caught on.
21 Dec 2005 ~ 2:07pm stabface This means nothing to me except i have had my fair share of pulling the plug out the back of my windows machine to get to it to work again