The upcoming Windows 7 OS from Microsoft is slated to be the replacement for the Vista. The lucky few who got to see some of the early build versions have focused mainly on the UI tweaks incorporated. However, the differences are more than skin deep. Apparently, there has been a slight tweaking of the new OS’ core to better support parallel processing. However, to ensure application and driver compatibility, most of these under the hood tweaks have been kept to minimal levels. With the Windows core, Win32 being dismissed as being unsuitable for asynchronous, concurrent computing, Microsoft is facing a dilemma of sorts – whether to go for an all-out change ground up, or take the slower path to evolution where they will eventually “phase out” the good ol’ win32. The former however seems unlikely in the near future – thanks to the Vista debacle and fears of another backlash owing to the dreaded “non compatibility” ghost that has been hounding Microsoft ever since the mis-adventure that was Vista.
That said, for long term plans, Microsoft is inching ahead to find a way of dissociating Windows from Win 32 – albeit gradually and replace it with managed code which will add the much needed full fledged parallel processing support. Managed code here refers to a set of programming interfaces optimized for handling parallel processing tasks spanning multiple processors. Many incubation projects including RedHawk and Midori are already heading in this direction.
If things go as planned, the run of the mill Windows which is bound to struggle with future computers that could run on processors having as many as 8, 16 or 32 cores, will get a new lease of life. It remains to be seen what optimization techniques Windows 7 and sibling Windows Server 2008 R2 incorporates prior to the early release expected very soon!
Via: Zdnet
No comments:
Post a Comment