Rumors about Windows/Linux/MacOS relevant to OS developers

[Candy]

I intend to start a list of things that are in Windows that are relevant to other developers, such as changes in on-disk structures etc. Also support for other OSes and multiboot is noteworthy.

Windows Vista is going to support symlinks directly. WinNT supported hardlinks since the first NTFS incarnation and symlinks through LNK files, but Vista is going to support symlinks the Unix way.

As Microsoft puts it:

In Vista/Longhorn server, the file system (NTFS) will start supporting a new filesystem object (examples of existing filesystem objects are files, folders etc.). This new object is a symbolic link. Think of a symbolic link as a pointer to another file system object (it can be a file, folder, shortcut or another symbolic link). So then you ask how is that different from a short-cut (the .lnk file)? Well, a shortcut will only work when used from within the Windows shell, it is a construct of the shell, and other apps don?t understand short-cuts. To other apps, short-cuts look just like a file. With symbolic links, this concept is taken and is implemented within the file system. Apps when they open a symbolic link will now open the target by default (i.e. what the link points to), unless they explicitly ask for the symbolic link itself to be opened. Note symbolic links are an NTFS feature.

So, that means that support for symlinks will be existing on nearly all filesystems, notably excepting FAT. Also, all operating systems in common use (unix-derivates and Windows) support them.

[Solar]

...except on the one format you can (conveniently) use to swap data between all those operating systems, and which is usually used on all common "swapping media" like USB sticks by default - that would still be FAT, unless Microsoft integrated e.g. ext2 support in Vista without me noticing.

What's the latest saying on WinFS, anyway?

[Candy]

that would still be FAT, unless Microsoft integrated e.g. ext2 support in Vista without me noticing.

I somewhat expect *somebody* to extend FAT or create something Windows supports properly, in a way I don't know yet. It's just a retarded world in this way. It's like people speaking english internally only to resort to child babble when speaking to their friends, because they don't understand it.

Second thought, it's like everybody speaking a different language, so that for inter-language communication everybody resorts to hand signals. Somebody invent the equivalent of English and make people conform to it.

What's the latest saying on WinFS, anyway?

Last time I heard about WinFS was that it was "delayed beyond the initial shipping date of Vista", which then came down to 2008 or later. Yet, it's a rumor.

[Colonel Kernel]

NTFS has had the equivalent of "symbolic links" to directories since Windows 2000 (go to www.sysinternals.com and look for the "junction" utility). It sounds like this new facility just adds support for creating symlinks to files as well (is that even possible under *nix without using a hard link instead...?)

[JoeKayzA]

NTFS has had the equivalent of "symbolic links" to directories since Windows 2000 (go to www.sysinternals.com and look for the "junction" utility). It sounds like this new facility just adds support for creating symlinks to files as well (is that even possible under *nix without using a hard link instead...?)

It is possible under Linux, at least.

Symlinks were supported under win2k just by using the low level (and AFAIK undocumented) NTFS APIs directly, the official Win32 APIs, and therefore the Windows explorer shell, did not support it (the shell used .lnk files instead). Maybe that's going to change now too.

And, IIRC, this symlink functionality was also used to emulate 'mount points': under the hood they were saved as symlinks to drives, just as the drive letters are implemented as symlinks too.

cheers Joe

[Colonel Kernel]

Two interesting new developments on the Microsoft front that OS devers may care about:

Monad: A new command-line shell for Windows Vista.

Singularity: A new project at Microsoft Research to build a high-reliability OS. I find this one particularly interesting as it looks like Singularity runs everything in ring 0 and uses managed code (compiled from safe languages such as C#) to ensure isolation between programs, drivers, OS extensions, etc.

[Pype.Clicker]

i had a look at a Monad article yesterday, and it indeed looks nice (well, it was about time to have a _decent_ shell on windows), even if the relation between the things performed by the shell and programs/files operations are still unclear in my mind. Monad looks more like a interpreter (? la Basic) for C# than a real shell so far ...

[Candy]

I noticed Singularity as well, and mainly that it was mainly written in C#. Although I can't imagine it working decently, it's an idea worth exploring (and that reminds me of those OC/AML people here).

[JoeKayzA]

I noticed Singularity as well, and mainly that it was mainly written in C#. Although I can't imagine it working decently, it's an idea worth exploring (and that reminds me of those OC/AML people here).

Yes, indeed, we have had that topic some time ago. ;D Did we come to a conclusion, btw?