http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=161546&l=i
http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/161546/dl/161546.xps

http://tinypic.com/r/33vdlk3/5

It shows that Drawbridge has been implemented on Midori and Barrelfish, so Windows apps can run unmodified on these operating systems.

It shows that Drawbridge has been implemented on Midori and Barrelfish, so Windows apps can run unmodified on these operating systems.  

Unmodified is a really strong word there.

http://tinypic.com/r/23iyqhj/5

It is not a virtual machine. That's the point.

C

2 hours ago, Charles wrote

@felix9: Did you watch the presentation, well, listen too? ☺

It is not a virtual machine. That's the point.

C

In fairness to Felix9, the slides do say, "Like VM design, but with higher-level abstractions and uses fewer resources", and later, "analogous to VM host/guest interface, but with higher-level abstractions - threads (not virtual CPUs) - virtual memory (not physical memory) - I/O streams (not virtual device hardware)."  So, yeah, it's not a VM ... but it's sorta kinda like one.  Since we don't have much else to compare it to.  It sounds great though.

EDIT:  No, I haven't watched the presentation yet, I just went through the slides.

C

2 hours ago, Charles wrote

@Richard.Hein: Analogies are analogies... It's a form of "virtualization", but it is not a VM. It seeks to replace the need for a VM to run software across disparate platforms (this is what a library OS enables). You can learn more: http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Experimental-Library-Operating-System

C

I agree; just saying that using that analogy makes us think of it that way, but indeed it's a much better solution, and again, I agree that analogies are analogies.    I will definitely check out the Going Deep episode … I does seem I've missed a few.

IMHO Drawbridge is not virtualizing a 'machine' as a hardware layer but its virtualizing low-level operating system services, so maybe we could call it 'Virtual OS' ?

C

C

Is this the same one I read a long time ago where you include a small OS along with the application, so, the application becomes platform independent?

A library OS is an operating system refactored to run as a set of libraries within the context of an application.

While Drawbridge can run many possible library OSes, a key contribution of Drawbridge is a version of Windows that has been enlightened to run within a single Drawbridge picoprocess. The Drawbridge Windows library OS consists of a user-mode NT kernel--informally referred to as NTUM--which runs within the picoprocess. NTUM provides the same NT API as the traditional NT kernel that runs on bare hardware and in hardware VMs, but is much smaller as it uses the higher-level abstractions exposed by the Drawbridge ABI. In addition to NTUM, Drawbridge includes a version of the Win32 subsystem that runs as a user-mode library within the picoprocess.

Upon the base services of NTUM and the user-mode Win32 subsystem, Drawbridge can run many of the DLLs and services from the hardware-based versions of Windows. As a result, the Drawbridge prototype can run large classes of Windows desktop and server applications with no modifications to the applications.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=180156

Also, See Windows 7 MinWin running on Kin http://tinypic.com/r/350ud7o/6