After more than a year of speculation, it has been confirmed that aspects of the Windows micro-kernel known as MinWin reside in Windows 7.
The confusion over MinWin began with an October 2007 demonstration by Microsoft employee Eric Traut. Traut showed a self-contained, Microsoft-engineered OS consisting of 100 files with a 25MB disk footprint and a 40MB memory impact. Pundits and enthusiasts alike were charmed by the potential of Microsoft’s love affair with efficient engineering.
The internet, already whipped into a frenzy over the possibility of a lightweight Microsoft OS, was further confused by a CNET interview with Windows 7 chief Steven Sinofsky. During the interview it was stated that MinWin was simply an evolution of the Windows 2008 kernel; many sites took this to imply that MinWin would not reside at the core of Windows 7.
Fast-forward to today where details on MinWin’s inclusion have finally come to light. Long-time Microsoft analyst Mary Jo Foley perhaps says it best:
If you could “cut” Windows and shuffle around some application programming interfaces (APIs) so that it would be a standalone, bootable, testable mini OS, MinWin is what it would look like. It’s the heart of Windows, organized in a way so that none of the included parts has any dependencies on anything outside of MinWin.
What’s clear is that MinWin is the foundation of Windows 7, but it is not a kernel in a traditional sense. Instead it is an lightweight stack of APIs and interfaces that make OS layers more independent. This should breed future modularity and new levels of stability.
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