Truth about Windows Kernel - a view from inside

[Kotobars]

Heya, found an interesting read from inside of Microsoft coding team.

 

One of the coders anonymously posted a blog named "I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why."

He actually deleted the original post since it was contained too "harsh" phrases. Someone made a copy still tho which you can read here http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=74

 

It contains some specific coders language ofc, but generally gives you a nice idea of how optimizing the code for performance is far from the top priority in MS, and how can coders from different teams not even touch each others code for optimization.

 

Kinda sad, will this post be a kick in the butt to MS? Or it will be a kick out for the poor guy that posted it

 

[WhatARoaster]

That was an interesting read. I can see why windows sucks now.

[mrthuvi]

I hope this story could promote change in developing Windows. I really love windows and i want it to be good.

[Guest]

He's got a very valid point. No one really notices changes to existing standards yet they notice additions to standards. 

[ericlee30]

Wow Microsoft, just wow :wacko:

[cYRoN]

It sounds better than I'd pictured. In comparison to the picture I'd in mind over the last couple of years it actually sounds like a heavenly enviroment to work in :o

[BakerT]

I must say that Windows 7 and 8 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012 seem pretty fast to me. Never really found a big performance difference when I tried both linux server and windows server for the same application(mostly servers)

Do we have some numbers on how much performance difference there is between a Windows Server(maybe without GUI) and a Linux server?

[unidentical]

If it ever gets mainstream support I will be all over Linux.

[GoodBytes]

I am not buying this for several reasons:

1- When Windows 7 was out, Microsoft bragged non stop how faster it is. Clearly Microsoft cared.

 

2- In order to get Windows 8/RT to run on tablets, additional performance was needed. So again, Microsoft cared.

 

3- People in Microsoft can change position... if he or she wants to, she can be project manager.

 

4- Microsoft take seriously security since before XP. The problem is that Windows XP, 2000, NT 4, are all based on NT 3, which was released in 1993. Not only Microsoft was still fairly small compared to today, but also, the Internet was not the same as today. And sending malware and virus over the internet, and user errors, isn't something that comes to mind to anyone back then. I mean, who would do Viruses? Right? And those that floats on floppies, these are far in few, and 'we can handle it', is probably what was taught about back then.

 

 

 

Also, so that everyone knows:

- Every software and hardware company has its issues with "poor programming" practices. The reason for this, is that there is no "good way to do thing". Every developers will have his or her own way how to do things, and present code. No one thinks exactly performance. One person will think calling a variable: progVer = 1.0; is good to identify the program version... others think it must be: XYZ_TM_management_panel_version_which_will_be_shown_in_the_program_About_dialog_box = 1.0;

 

- In every large companies, change is very difficult and time consuming. There is paper work, evaluation, get support of many many many managers, and so on.  I worked once in a large company once for summer, and the debugger system that we had to use, was utter crap, where for some odd reason at  random it would cut your explanation that you type in half, and give you no way to edit it. You hit enter for a new line.. sometimes it works, sometimes it adds a line at the top, sometimes it submits it. And many, many, other issues. This made people setup their own debug system, and they are so many separate ones, that a lot of bugs are missed, and duplicated posts, and the managers don't want to hear it, because they are used to the current system, it works, they get the reports that they want, how they want, and don't want to learn something new... like people with Windows 8. Why no manager cares? Because the consumer is happy. And as long as they don't find bugs, or their reported bugs are fixed, it's all good. Now, this has been a long time I worked there, so I don't know if this still continues, but its just to present an example.

 

 

 

 

In the case of Microsoft:

 

-> Remember Vista? Vista had a nice new core, practically. And almost every tech enthusiasts went and said: "XP with instant search! LOL! Not Buying!". So why would Microsoft bother, is no one, not even IT/Power Users/computer enthusiasts, and of course users, cares one bit what happens on the back. Dev's also dont' care.. they don't even care of reading Microsoft documentation. If they did, their games and software would never have a problem with future version of Windows, and games, won't treat your 'My Documents' folder as an ash tray, and dump all the game crap inside, instead of using the Temp folder, AppData, and Save Games folders, as they should.

 

-> Linux community is really something unique, where the community has a standard of how to organize code, if it's done right, someone else will come and fix it. And spend time to do performance improvement. But look how snail speed Linux moves. If Microsoft did this, we would still be using a Windows that looks like Windows 2000, and in features, as there is no focus on the rest. It's a sacrifice that Microsoft does. And when it collapse like XP, you start new or "new".

Also, while Linux wit GUI/xWindows you can run a 500Mhz with 256MB of RAM, and possibly even less. Users of Windows, don't do this. Beside, you have Windows Embedded System, if you ever do. So, More reason for Microsoft to not care... beside it pushes PC sales, which OEMs are happy.

[mrthuvi]

On the topic of wnidows programming. Check out the Microsoft section of this page:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DarthWiki/IdiotProgramming

It's hilarious.  :D

[beebskadoo]

I think the Main reason people have a complaint about windows is the bloatware that comes on purchased machines. It kills it for me to buy a 1000+ dollar performance laptop and it comes with useless bloatware that hogs resources and is literally useless in every way. You can look at it the same way  with Android. I have a Galaxy S3, it comes with Samsung's bloatware and T-mobile's bloatware, neither of which i need and I can't get it off of there without voiding my warranty. I'm not that learned when it comes to coding and things like that. I only see what's on the surface and what I see is an operating system that is naively compatible with basically every piece of hardware I would want to throw at it and it does it better than everyone else. That's all I could want really want tbh. I really feel windows 8 needs some work but i can definitely since that they made a lot of improvements to the speed at which things happen. It just seems cleaner. Idk i could be wrong but like I said, I just see the surface.

[GoodBytes]

I think the Main reason people have a complaint about windows is the bloatware that comes on purchased machines. It kills it for me to buy a 1000+ dollar performance laptop and it comes with useless bloatware that hogs resources and is literally useless in every way. You can look at it the same way  with Android. I have a Galaxy S3, it comes with Samsung's bloatware and T-mobile's bloatware, neither of which i need and I can't get it off of there without voiding my warranty. I'm not that learned when it comes to coding and things like that. I only see what's on the surface and what I see is an operating system that is naively compatible with basically every piece of hardware I would want to throw at it and it does it better than everyone else. That's all I could want really want tbh. I really feel windows 8 needs some work but i can definitely since that they made a lot of improvements to the speed at which things happen. It just seems cleaner. Idk i could be wrong but like I said, I just see the surface.

Actually , the reason for the bloatware is that the consumer wants the lowest price possible. So the commercial apps, help reduce the price of the system. That is also why:

 -> No OS or drive or recovery disks is provided

 -> Why home section computer warranty is only 1 year and not great (while for most business class system it's 3 years, more flexible, and they listen to you, and well far better)

 -> Cheapo large and bulky Power supply provided with laptops

 -> Build quality is not great

 -> practically 0 engineering on port location, and cooling, making the laptops hot at the bottom.

 -> Not great battery life (business class systems usually have between 7 to 10h of battery life with the large capacity battery)

 

Everything is done to cut cost, as the consumer simply doesn't want the pay. The consumer wants high-numbers on the specs, and pay the least possible, to prices that is simply not possible for a well engineered systems, and profits to entice OEMs to make interesting systems.

 

As an example of a good system, I'll pick my old (5 years old) yet current laptop:

• It's 5 years old, and still looks fairly new. And I bring it to school EVERY day, even week ends , except summer, which is not every day, but at least once a week somewhere.
• Magnesium allow lid and base construction, with metal solid block hinge system
• 1 screw, full internal access inside the computer. It's like opening a desktop case. 4 easy access screws, and the heatsink and fan is out. 6 or 8 screws, and the motherboard is out. Optical drive can be replaced without the need of any screw driver. Now THAT is smart engineering.
• Always cool and quiet. The fan rarely spins. The fan is also fairly quiet when it spins. I can even overclock the GPU to high levels, just fine, with no heat problem. Now, that's crazy! And it's not a gaming laptop at all. It was, back in the days "thin" laptop.
• Bottom of the laptop is at worst (when playing an intensive game), warm.
• 3 year warranty, with 3 year next business day on site service. MINIMUM. So that means, if anything breaks, I can have the technician that comes over at my place, at the exact time I want, to fix the system in front of me, making sure that my problem is solved, and done right. This service and warranty period is minimum. You can't have less. This shows you how Dell is convinced about the quality of their system at this range. You can extend the service up to 5 years.
• 10h of battery life with the 9-cell battery. Can be expended to 21h, with the secondary battery plate that be put at the bottom of the system, thanks to the expansion slot
• 0 junk of any kind, OS disk and driver disk included
• Thin and small 90W PSU
• Nvidia med-low range Quadro GPU (Quadro NVS 160M 256MB of memory)
• Core 2 Duo P8400 2.2GHz, 4GB of RAM DDR2 800MHz.
• backlight keyboard (that was new, back then) and ambient light sensor.
• Only 14inch, and has a 1440x900 resolution

 

I paid ~1600$ before taxes. You could get the a similarly powerful Dell XPS for 900-1000$  if memory serve correct. But it was much hotter, 1 year warranty, junk, no dsk, 4-5h at best with the extended battery, pain in the ass to open, loud under load due to cheap fans and poor cooling engineering, plastic construct, and nothing really special.