Channel 9 - Entries tagged with Operating System Microsoft http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/Dev/App_Themes/C9/images/feedimage.png Channel 9 - Entries tagged with Operating System http://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/operating+systems Channel 9 keeps you up to date with the latest news and behind the scenes info from Microsoft that developers love to keep up with. From LINQ to SilverLight – Watch videos and hear about all the cool technologies coming and the people behind them. http://channel9.msdn.com/Tags/operating+systems en Sun, 19 May 2013 14:54:29 GMT Sun, 19 May 2013 14:54:29 GMT Rev9 58 3 25 Bruce Worthington: Power Efficiency in Windows 8 and Beyond In developing Windows 8, power efficiency was a primary engineering theme. This means that all aspects of the system were designed and developed with efficient power usage in mind. It's paid off—Windows 8 is the most power efficient version of Windows to date. 

In this video, Windows Development Lead Bruce Worthington, an OS power and performance expert who leads a team of engineers working on Windows power management fundamentals, sits down with us to share the story of power efficiency in Windows 8. The renewed focus on power has paid off and is evident across the Windows ecosystem—from Windows on tablets, notebooks, hybrids, and desktops to Windows running in the data center.

Huge thanks to Bruce for this excellent conversation!

Tune in.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Bruce-Worthington-Power-Efficiency-in-Windows-8-and-Beyond In developing Windows 8, power efficiency was a primary engineering theme. This means that all aspects of the system were designed and developed with efficient power usage in mind. It's paid off—Windows 8 is the most power efficient version of Windows to date. In this video, Windows Development Lead Bruce Worthington, an OS power and performance expert who leads a team of engineers working on Windows power management fundamentals, sits down with us to share the story of power efficiency in Windows 8. The renewed focus on power has paid off and is evident across the Windows ecosystem—from Windows on tablets, notebooks, hybrids, and desktops to Windows running in the data center.Huge thanks to Bruce for this excellent conversation! Tune in. 2164 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Bruce-Worthington-Power-Efficiency-in-Windows-8-and-Beyond Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:28:25 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Bruce-Worthington-Power-Efficiency-in-Windows-8-and-Beyond Charles Charles 3 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Bruce-Worthington-Power-Efficiency-in-Windows-8-and-Beyond/rss Kernel Operating System Power Power Management Windows 8 WindowsContent Inside Windows 8 Inside Windows 8: Chris Stevens - Boot Environment Chris Stevens is a software developer on the Windows kernel team working on the Windows boot environment. Windows 8 boots faster than any other version of Windows. Why? How?

Chris begins with the fundamentals (so, if you don't know anything about the boot process or what actually happens when an OS like Windows starts up, then you will after watching this...) and then digs into how the boot experience/environment/process was has evolved in Windows 8.

Tune in!

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Chris-Stevens-Boot-Environment Chris Stevens is a software developer on the Windows kernel team working on the Windows boot environment. Windows 8 boots faster than any other version of Windows. Why? How? Chris begins with the fundamentals (so, if you don't know anything about the boot process or what actually happens when an OS like Windows starts up, then you will after watching this...) and then digs into how the boot experience/environment/process was has evolved in Windows 8. Tune in! 2474 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Chris-Stevens-Boot-Environment Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:02:53 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Chris-Stevens-Boot-Environment Charles Charles 12 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Chris-Stevens-Boot-Environment/RSS Architecture Kernel Operating System Boot Windows 8 WindowsContent Inside Windows 8 Inside Windows 8: Jon Berry - Desktop Activity Moderator and Connected Standby Jon Berry, a veteran Windows engineer, digs into the new way Windows 8 manages processes to support the brave new world of Windows running on various CPU architectures including ARM and ATOM, which present an interesting set of technical challenges given the need to aggressively preserve energy when running—yet not fully running—while in a battery-powered state.

Jon owns the Desktop Activity Moderator (DAM), which, as the name implies, moderates desktop processes. The DAM is one of several new features in Windows 8 designed to ensure consistent, long battery life for devices that support connected standby.

Connected standby occurs when the device is powered on but the screen is turned off. In this power state, the system is technically always "on" (to support key scenarios like mail, VoIP, social networking, and instant messaging with Windows Store apps). It is analogous to the state a smart phone is in when the user presses the power button.  

As such, software (including apps and operating system software) must be well-behaved during connected standby. The DAM was created to suppress desktop app execution in a manner similar to the Sleep state. It does this by suspending or throttling desktop software processes across the system upon connected standby entry. This enables systems that support connected standby to deliver minimized resource usage and long, consistent battery life while enabling Windows Store apps to deliver the connected experiences they promise.

The DAM is a kernel mode driver that is loaded and initialized at system boot if the system supports connected standby. 

How does Windows 8 provide this always-on experience and not drain the battery in 10 minutes? What does the DAM actually do? How does it work? The DAM is part of a larger management system, which Jon also describes here. What is connected standby, exactly? Jon spends a lot of time at the whiteboard answering these and other questions. Thank you, Jon!

Tune in. Learn.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Jon-Berry-Desktop-Activity-Moderator-and-Connected-Standby Jon Berry, a veteran Windows engineer, digs into the new way Windows 8 manages processes to support the brave new world of Windows running on various CPU architectures including ARM and ATOM, which present an interesting set of technical challenges given the need to aggressively preserve energy when running—yet not fully running—while in a battery-powered state. Jon owns the Desktop Activity Moderator (DAM), which, as the name implies, moderates desktop processes. The DAM is one of several new features in Windows 8 designed to ensure consistent, long battery life for devices that support connected standby. Connected standby occurs when the device is powered on but the screen is turned off. In this power state, the system is technically always "on" (to support key scenarios like mail, VoIP, social networking, and instant messaging with Windows Store apps). It is analogous to the state a smart phone is in when the user presses the power button.   As such, software (including apps and operating system software) must be well-behaved during connected standby. The DAM was created to suppress desktop app execution in a manner similar to the Sleep state. It does this by suspending or throttling desktop software processes across the system upon connected standby entry. This enables systems that support connected standby to deliver minimized resource usage and long, consistent battery life while enabling Windows Store apps to deliver the connected experiences they promise. The DAM is a kernel mode driver that is loaded and initialized at system boot if the system supports connected standby.  How does Windows 8 provide this always-on experience and not drain the battery in 10 minutes? What does the DAM actually do? How does it work? The DAM is part of a larger management system, which Jon also describes here. What is connected standby, exactly? Jon spends a lot of time at the whiteboard answering these and other questions. 2750 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Jon-Berry-Desktop-Activity-Moderator-and-Connected-Standby Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:55:24 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Jon-Berry-Desktop-Activity-Moderator-and-Connected-Standby Charles Charles 5 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Inside-Windows-8-Jon-Berry-Desktop-Activity-Moderator-and-Connected-Standby/RSS Architecture Kernel Operating System Windows 8 WindowsContent Inside Windows 8 Drawbridge: A new form of virtualization for application sandboxing Drawbridge is a research prototype of a new form of virtualization for application sandboxing. Drawbridge combines two core technologies: First, a picoprocess, which is a process-based isolation container with a minimal kernel API surface. Second, a library OS, which is a version of Windows enlightened to run efficiently within a picoprocess. Drawbridge combines two ideas from the literature, the picoprocess and the library OS, to provide a new form of computing, which retains the benefits of secure isolation, persistent compatibility, and execution continuity, but with drastically lower resource overheads.

The Drawbridge library OS is an experimental Windows 7 library OS - a research project and proving ground for a larger concept: application virtualization and sandboxing. Drawbridge is capable of running the latest releases of major Windows applications such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer with very little overhead compared to the traditional virtualization techniques. The experiment is going well! Now, what's going on here, exactly?

Drawbridge research team members Galen Hunt, Reuben Olinsky and Jon Howell dig into some of the details, including project rationale and OS architecture, of research project Drawbridge.

Paper: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=141071

 

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Experimental-Library-Operating-System Drawbridge is a research prototype of a new form of virtualization for application sandboxing. Drawbridge combines two core technologies: First, a picoprocess, which is a process-based isolation container with a minimal kernel API surface. Second, a library OS, which is a version of Windows enlightened to run efficiently within a picoprocess. Drawbridge combines two ideas from the literature, the picoprocess and the library OS, to provide a new form of computing, which retains the benefits of secure isolation, persistent compatibility, and execution continuity, but with drastically lower resource overheads. The Drawbridge library OS is an experimental Windows 7 library OS - a research project and proving ground for a larger concept: application virtualization and sandboxing. Drawbridge is capable of running the latest releases of major Windows applications such as Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer with very little overhead compared to the traditional virtualization techniques. The experiment is going well! Now, what's going on here, exactly? Drawbridge research team members Galen Hunt, Reuben Olinsky and Jon Howell dig into some of the details, including project rationale and OS architecture, of research project Drawbridge. Paper: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=141071   2812 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Experimental-Library-Operating-System Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:27:19 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Experimental-Library-Operating-System Charles Charles 28 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Drawbridge-An-Experimental-Library-Operating-System/RSS Kernel Microsoft Research MS Research Operating System OS Security Windows 7 experimental Abolade Gbadegesin: Inside Windows Phone "Mango" There have been a lot of positive reviews of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS release, code named "Mango." This release is a big one. It contains over 500 new features (and over 1000 new APIs), is full of improvements - from the core OS to the performance of UI scrolling - and "Mango" puts the user in control of almost everything the system has to offer.

"Mango" represents some impressive engineering. Since this is Going Deep, we are necessarily interested in the system-level improvements inside the Windows Phone operating system (in addition meeting a key engineer behind it).

Two new core or system-level features in "Mango" are a generational garbage collector and support for multitasking, or the ability to concurrently run application processes in both the foreground and background. GGC and Multitasking are going to be great for developers and users alike.

How does multitasking in "Mango" work? How is it designed? Lot's of great user features, but what about improvements to the developer experience? Let's ask the great Abolade Gbadegesin—a stellar software engineer (writing mostly C++ Smiley -> go native!) and key contributor to the Windows Phone operating system, application services, and overall "Mango" platform architecture—to get some real answers.

Tune in.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Abolade-Gbadegesin-Inside-Windows-Phone-Mango There have been a lot of positive reviews of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 OS release, code named "Mango." This release is a big one. It contains over 500 new features (and over 1000 new APIs), is full of improvements - from the core OS to the performance of UI scrolling - and "Mango" puts the user in control of almost everything the system has to offer. "Mango" represents some impressive engineering. Since this is Going Deep, we are necessarily interested in the system-level improvements inside the Windows Phone operating system (in addition meeting a key engineer behind it). Two new core or system-level features in "Mango" are a generational garbage collector and support for multitasking, or the ability to concurrently run application processes in both the foreground and background. GGC and Multitasking are going to be great for developers and users alike. How does multitasking in "Mango" work? How is it designed? Lot's of great user features, but what about improvements to the developer experience? Let's ask the great Abolade Gbadegesin—a stellar software engineer (writing mostly C++ -> go native!) and key contributor to the Windows Phone operating system, application services, and overall "Mango" platform architecture—to get some real answers. Tune in. 2282 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Abolade-Gbadegesin-Inside-Windows-Phone-Mango Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:46:55 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Abolade-Gbadegesin-Inside-Windows-Phone-Mango Charles Charles 27 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Abolade-Gbadegesin-Inside-Windows-Phone-Mango/RSS Garbage Collector Kernel Operating System Windows Phone 7 WP7 ICSE 2011: Victor Pankratius - Developing Manycore Applications with Concurrency Auto-Tuners Continuing on with our coverage of ICSE 2011, meet Dr. Victor Pankratius. Dr. Pankratius heads the Multicore Software Engineering investigator group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He also serves as the elected chairman of the Software Engineering for parallel Systems (SEPARS) international working group. Dr. Pankratius' current research concentrates on how to make parallel programming easier. His work on multicore software engineering covers a range of research topics including empirical studies, auto-tuning, language design, and debugging.

In this video, Wolfram Schulte joins Victor to discuss the challenges of making concurrency easier for developers. One of the really interesting approaches that Victor and team are investigating is concurrency auto-tuning, and the example discussed here involve adding OS kernel-level support for auto-tuning user mode applications for manycore processor architectures. This is very fascinating research with great potential. Concurrency auto-tuner in an OS kernel? Concurrency-enlightened operating systems? Why not? Always great to meet young innovators with no fear of failure. I hope to see this type of thing materialize. Very interesting research and real world problem.  Go Victor. Go!

Thanks to Wolfram and Victor for another great conversation. Tune in.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/ICSE-2011-Victor-Pankratius-Developing-Manycore-Applications-with-Auto-Tuners Continuing on with our coverage of ICSE 2011, meet Dr. Victor Pankratius. Dr. Pankratius heads the Multicore Software Engineering investigator group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He also serves as the elected chairman of the Software Engineering for parallel Systems (SEPARS) international working group. Dr. Pankratius' current research concentrates on how to make parallel programming easier. His work on multicore software engineering covers a range of research topics including empirical studies, auto-tuning, language design, and debugging. In this video, Wolfram Schulte joins Victor to discuss the challenges of making concurrency easier for developers. One of the really interesting approaches that Victor and team are investigating is concurrency auto-tuning, and the example discussed here involve adding OS kernel-level support for auto-tuning user mode applications for manycore processor architectures. This is very fascinating research with great potential. Concurrency auto-tuner in an OS kernel? Concurrency-enlightened operating systems? Why not? Always great to meet young innovators with no fear of failure. I hope to see this type of thing materialize. Very interesting research and real world problem.  Go Victor. Go!Thanks to Wolfram and Victor for another great conversation. Tune in. 1155 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/ICSE-2011-Victor-Pankratius-Developing-Manycore-Applications-with-Auto-Tuners Mon, 20 Jun 2011 21:21:02 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/ICSE-2011-Victor-Pankratius-Developing-Manycore-Applications-with-Auto-Tuners Charles Charles 0 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/ICSE-2011-Victor-Pankratius-Developing-Manycore-Applications-with-Auto-Tuners/rss Computer Science Concurrency Kernel Microsoft Research MS Research Operating System Programming RiSE ICSE 2011 Chris Hawblitzel and Juan Chen: Introduction to Typed Assembly Language (TAL) Typed Assembly Language (TAL) extends traditional untyped assembly languages with typing annotations, memory management primitives, and a sound set of typing rules. These typing rules guarantee the memory safety, control flow safety, and type safety of TAL programs. Moreover, the typing constructs are expressive enough to encode most source language programming features including records and structures, arrays, higher-order and polymorphic functions, exceptions, abstract data types, subtyping, and modules. Just as importantly, TAL is flexible enough to admit many low-level compiler optimizations. Consequently, TAL is an ideal target platform for type-directed compilers that want to produce verifiably safe code for use in secure mobile code applications or extensible operating system kernels. [Source]

You've met Microsoft research scientist and operating system expert Chris Hawblitzel before. He's the architect and lead researcher of the Verve operating system research project from MSR. As you learned in that interview, typed assembly language and Hoare logic were employed to verify the absence of many kinds of errors in low-level code. Chris et al. use TAL and Hoare logic to achieve highly automated, static verification of the safety of Verve. We didn't spend much time on TAL during the Verve interview, so we decided to remedy that. Enter computer scientist and RiSE team member Juan Chen who did much of the TAL work for Verve. After you watch this video, you should read this paper to go much deeper.

Tune in and get a sense of what TAL is, how type verification works for assembly code, benefits, trade-offs, and much more. Enjoy.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chris-Hawblitzel-and-Juan-Chen-Introduction-to-Typed-Assembly-Language-TAL Typed Assembly Language (TAL) extends traditional untyped assembly languages with typing annotations, memory management primitives, and a sound set of typing rules. These typing rules guarantee the memory safety, control flow safety, and type safety of TAL programs. Moreover, the typing constructs are expressive enough to encode most source language programming features including records and structures, arrays, higher-order and polymorphic functions, exceptions, abstract data types, subtyping, and modules. Just as importantly, TAL is flexible enough to admit many low-level compiler optimizations. Consequently, TAL is an ideal target platform for type-directed compilers that want to produce verifiably safe code for use in secure mobile code applications or extensible operating system kernels. [Source]You've met Microsoft research scientist and operating system expert Chris Hawblitzel before. He's the architect and lead researcher of the Verve operating system research project from MSR. As you learned in that interview, typed assembly language and Hoare logic were employed to verify the absence of many kinds of errors in low-level code. Chris et al. use TAL and Hoare logic to achieve highly automated, static verification of the safety of Verve. We didn't spend much time on TAL during the Verve interview, so we decided to remedy that. Enter computer scientist and RiSE team member Juan Chen who did much of the TAL work for Verve. After you watch this video, you should read this paper to go much deeper. Tune in and get a sense of what TAL is, how type verification works for assembly code, benefits, trade-offs, and much more. Enjoy. 2611 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chris-Hawblitzel-and-Juan-Chen-Introduction-to-Typed-Assembly-Language-TAL Wed, 11 May 2011 16:33:41 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chris-Hawblitzel-and-Juan-Chen-Introduction-to-Typed-Assembly-Language-TAL Charles Charles 9 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chris-Hawblitzel-and-Juan-Chen-Introduction-to-Typed-Assembly-Language-TAL/RSS Compilers Computer Science Microsoft Research MS Research Operating System Programming Languages RiSE Verve: A Type Safe Operating System  

The Singularity project (an OS written in managed code used for research purposes) has provided several very useful research results and opened new avenues for exploration in operating system design. Recently, MSR released a paper covering an operating system research project that takes a new approach to building an OS stack with verifiable and type safe managed code. This project employs a novel use of Typed Assembly Language, which is what you think it is: Assembly with types (implemented as annotations and verified statically using the verification technology Boogie and the theorem prover Z3(Boogie generates verification conditions that are then statically proven by Z3. Boogie is also a language used to build program verifiers for other languages)). As with Singularity, the C# Bartok compiler is used, but this time it generates TAL. The entire OS stack is verifiably type safe (the Nucleus is essentially the Verve HAL) and all objects are garbage collected. It does not employ the SIP model of process isolation (like Singularity). In this case, again, the entire operating system is type safe and statically proven as such using world-class theorem provers. 

Here's the basic idea (from the introduction of the paper):

Typed assembly language (TAL) and Hoare logic can verify the absence of many kinds of errors in low-level code. We use TAL and Hoare logic to achieve highly automated, static verification of the safety of a new operating system called Verve. Our techniques and tools mechanically verify the safety of every assembly language instruction in the operating system, run-time system, drivers, and applications (in fact, every part of the system software except the boot loader). Verve consists of a “Nucleus” that provides primitive access to hardware and memory, a kernel that builds services on top of the Nucleus, and applications that run on top of the kernel.

Here, Microsoft research scientist and operating system expert (he worked on the Singularity project) Chris Hawblitzel sits down with me to discuss the rationale behind the Verve project, the architecture and design of Verve and the Nucleus, Typed Assembly Language (TAL), potential for Verve in the real world, and much more. This is a conversational piece (no demos, no whiteboarding), but if you are into operating research and strategies for building type safe systems at the lowest levels, then this is for you. If you are interested, perhaps we could get Chris into our studio for a lecture or two on OS design. Smiley

Niner Richard Hein's question is asked here.

Get the Verve source code here.

Enjoy. Learn.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Verve-A-Type-Safe-Operating-System   The Singularity project (an OS written in managed code used for research purposes) has provided several very useful research results and opened new avenues for exploration in operating system design. Recently, MSR released a paper covering an operating system research project that takes a new approach to building an OS stack with verifiable and type safe managed code. This project employs a novel use of Typed Assembly Language, which is what you think it is: Assembly with types (implemented as annotations and verified statically using the verification technology Boogie and the theorem prover Z3(Boogie generates verification conditions that are then statically proven by Z3. Boogie is also a language used to build program verifiers for other languages)). As with Singularity, the C# Bartok compiler is used, but this time it generates TAL. The entire OS stack is verifiably type safe (the Nucleus is essentially the Verve HAL) and all objects are garbage collected. It does not employ the SIP model of process isolation (like Singularity). In this case, again, the entire operating system is type safe and statically proven as such using world-class theorem provers.  Here's the basic idea (from the introduction of the paper): Typed assembly language (TAL) and Hoare logic can verify the absence of many kinds of errors in low-level code. We use TAL and Hoare logic to achieve highly automated, static verification of the safety of a new operating system called Verve. Our techniques and tools mechanically verify the safety of every assembly language instruction in the operating system, run-time system, drivers, and applications (in fact, every part of the system software except the boot loader). Verve consists of a “Nucleus” that provides primitive access to hardware and memory, a kernel that builds services on top of the Nucleus, and applications that run on top of the kernel. Here, Microsoft research scientist and operating system expert (he worked on 4490 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Verve-A-Type-Safe-Operating-System Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:01:28 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Verve-A-Type-Safe-Operating-System Charles Charles 14 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Verve-A-Type-Safe-Operating-System/RSS Architecture C9 Conversations Kernel Managed Code Microsoft Research MS Research Operating System Z3 Mark Russinovich: Windows Azure, Cloud Operating Systems and Platform as a Service  

Mark Russinovich is a Technical Fellow working on the Windows Azure team. His focus is on solving hard problems related to the Fabric Controller, which is in some sense the Windows Azure operating system kernel - it provides services and management infrastructure for the applications that run on Windows Azure.

Before joining the Windows Azure team, Mark worked in the Windows kernel engineering group and, as you probably know, Mark is one of the founders of SysInternals and is the co-author of several extremely useful tools for analyzing, measuring, monitoring and really understanding the things that happen at the lowest levels of the system like memory management, process management, threading, etc... Mark also is the co-author of the best Windows Internals books on the market. Finally, Mark is one of the highest rated speakers at Microsoft technical conferences (you must watch his PDC10 sessions!). Will he still work on Windows Internals series of books now that he is no longer on the Windows team? Is he still deeply engaged in the goings on in Windows kernel world? Is he writing SysInternals tools for Windows Azure? What is the Fabric Controller, exactly? How does it work? What's underneath the Fabric Controller?

Windows Azure is a cloud operating system. What does that mean? What are the Windows-analogous components running inside Windows Azure? What's Mark up to?  How does he like the new gig? Why is platform as a service (PaaS) so important? What is PaaS, really? And more.

As usual, this is a turn-the-camera-on-and-converse interview that happened just as you see and hear it. We therefore move from topic to topic in a natural and somewhat unstructured way and yours truly probably had too much coffee before heading to Mark's office Smiley

It's always a real pleasure to get to chat with Mark. He has the uncanny ability to simplify complexity so that we can understand the meaning and reasoning behind the technology at hand without possesssing expert level knowledge or being as bright as Mark. He's one of our best and brightest technical minds and Windows Azure is lucky to have him solving hard problems and pushing the Windows Azure kernel(Fabric Controller) envelope.

Tune in.

 

 

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Windows-Azure-Cloud-Operating-Systems-and-Platform-as-a-Service   Mark Russinovich is a Technical Fellow working on the Windows Azure team. His focus is on solving hard problems related to the Fabric Controller, which is in some sense the Windows Azure operating system kernel - it provides services and management infrastructure for the applications that run on Windows Azure. Before joining the Windows Azure team, Mark worked in the Windows kernel engineering group and, as you probably know, Mark is one of the founders of SysInternals and is the co-author of several extremely useful tools for analyzing, measuring, monitoring and really understanding the things that happen at the lowest levels of the system like memory management, process management, threading, etc... Mark also is the co-author of the best Windows Internals books on the market. Finally, Mark is one of the highest rated speakers at Microsoft technical conferences (you must watch his PDC10 sessions!). Will he still work on Windows Internals series of books now that he is no longer on the Windows team? Is he still deeply engaged in the goings on in Windows kernel world? Is he writing SysInternals tools for Windows Azure? What is the Fabric Controller, exactly? How does it work? What's underneath the Fabric Controller? Windows Azure is a cloud operating system. What does that mean? What are the Windows-analogous components running inside Windows Azure? What's Mark up to?  How does he like the new gig? Why is platform as a service (PaaS) so important? What is PaaS, really? And more. As usual, this is a turn-the-camera-on-and-converse interview that happened just as you see and hear it. We therefore move from topic to topic in a natural and somewhat unstructured way and yours truly probably had too much coffee before heading to Mark's office It's always a real pleasure to get to chat with Mark. He has the uncanny ability to simplify complexity so that we can understand the meaning and reasoning behind the technology at hand without possess 2675 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Windows-Azure-Cloud-Operating-Systems-and-Platform-as-a-Service Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:30:45 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Windows-Azure-Cloud-Operating-Systems-and-Platform-as-a-Service Charles Charles 27 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Windows-Azure-Cloud-Operating-Systems-and-Platform-as-a-Service/RSS Cloud Computing Cloud Services Kernel Mark Russinovich Operating System PaaS Windows Azure UNIX Extensions for SMB2 Protocol Initiative 2010 Tom Talpey, Software Architect, discussed the UNIX extensions for SMB2 protocol initiative during the 2010 File Sharing Windows Protocols Plugfest.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/UNIX-Extensions-for-SMB2-Protocol-Initiative-2010 Tom Talpey, Software Architect, discussed the UNIX extensions for SMB2 protocol initiative during the 2010 File Sharing Windows Protocols Plugfest. 3507 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/UNIX-Extensions-for-SMB2-Protocol-Initiative-2010 Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:44:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/UNIX-Extensions-for-SMB2-Protocol-Initiative-2010 Darryl Welch Darryl Welch 0 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/UNIX-Extensions-for-SMB2-Protocol-Initiative-2010/rss Interoperability Open Protocols Operating System Windows Protocols Landy Wang - Windows Memory Manager Charles Torre (interviewer) and Michael Lehman (cameraman) continue the "Going Deep: Windows" series with a discussion with Landy Wang, a developer of the oh so important Windows Memory Manager.

Sorry for the low audio volume.

EDIT November 2, 2008: There is no streaming video for this interview. We will look into it. For now, please clickhere.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Landy-Wang-Windows-Memory-Manager Charles Torre (interviewer) and Michael Lehman (cameraman) continue the "Going Deep: Windows" series with a discussion with Landy Wang, a developer of the oh so important Windows Memory Manager.Sorry for the low audio volume.EDIT November 2, 2008: There is no streaming video for this interview. We will look into it. For now, please clickhere. http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Landy-Wang-Windows-Memory-Manager Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:24:12 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Landy-Wang-Windows-Memory-Manager The Channel 9 Team The Channel 9 Team 33 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Landy-Wang-Windows-Memory-Manager/RSS Kernel Operating System OS Windows Embedded: Past, Present and Future Windows Embedded Standard is a general purpose OS, based on the Windows codebase, that is highly modular and fine tuned to run on a number of devices ranging in size and complexity (but less powerful and kess general purpose in nature than your average PC) that are x86/x64 powered (casino gaming consoles, retail kiosks, hand-held devices, etc). The next version of Windows Embedded Standard will arrive some time in 2010 - thus the name Windows Embedded Standard 2011. 

Windows Embedded is the general term for all Windows embedded products including Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Compact (aka CE), Windows Embedded Server, Windows Embedded Enterprise.

For the Windows Embedded Standard product line, product examples are Windows XP Embedded (aka XPe), Windows Embedded Standard 2009, Windows Embedded Standard 2011, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009.

We figured it would be a good idea to meet some of the developers who write Windows Embedded Standard to get a better understanding of, well, exactly what it is and where it is going. Here, we meet and chat with Windows Embedded Standard developers Oren Winter, Jon Parati, Mike Moini and Milong Sabandith. What are the key new features in Windows Embedded Standard 2011? What is Windows Embedded Standard 2011, exactly? What's Windows Embedded CE, again? How is Windows Embedded related to Windows proper? Windows Embedded Standard 2011 is built from the same sources that make up Windows 7? What's different between the two and why? How is Windows Embedded Standard able to be so modular? What's the developer story for Windows Embedded Standard 2011? And more. Tune in. Classic Channel 9.

Useful Links:
Product Overview 
CTP Download 
Submit Feedback 
MSDN Forums
Team Blog 
Webinars   ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Windows-Embedded-Past-Present-and-Future Windows Embedded Standard is a general purpose OS, based on the Windows codebase, that is highly modular and fine tuned to run on a number of devices ranging in size and complexity (but less powerful and kess general purpose in nature than your average PC) that are x86/x64 powered (casino gaming consoles, retail kiosks, hand-held devices, etc). The next version of Windows Embedded Standard will arrive some time in 2010 - thus the name Windows Embedded Standard 2011.  Windows Embedded is the general term for all Windows embedded products including Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Compact (aka CE), Windows Embedded Server, Windows Embedded Enterprise.For the Windows Embedded Standard product line, product examples are Windows XP Embedded (aka XPe), Windows Embedded Standard 2009, Windows Embedded Standard 2011, Windows Embedded POSReady 2009. We figured it would be a good idea to meet some of the developers who write Windows Embedded Standard to get a better understanding of, well, exactly what it is and where it is going. Here, we meet and chat with Windows Embedded Standard developers Oren Winter, Jon Parati, Mike Moini and Milong Sabandith. What are the key new features in Windows Embedded Standard 2011? What is Windows Embedded Standard 2011, exactly? What's Windows Embedded CE, again? How is Windows Embedded related to Windows proper? Windows Embedded Standard 2011 is built from the same sources that make up Windows 7? What's different between the two and why? How is Windows Embedded Standard able to be so modular? What's the developer story for Windows Embedded Standard 2011? And more. Tune in. Classic Channel 9. Useful Links:Product Overview CTP Download Submit Feedback MSDN ForumsTeam Blog Webinars   2208 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Windows-Embedded-Past-Present-and-Future Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:14:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Windows-Embedded-Past-Present-and-Future Charles Charles 1 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Windows-Embedded-Past-Present-and-Future/RSS Architecture Operating System Programming Windows 7 Windows Embedded C9 Conversations: Yousef Khalidi on Cloud Computing Yousef Khalidi is a Distinguished Engineer with a rich history in both operating system design and distributed computing. Yousef is responsible for the overall design of Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud operating system (which includes the Azure development platform in addition to the "OS", aka Windows Azure). Windows Azure is an operating system in the sense that it supplies a host of core services, process scheduling and management, identity management, etc, that we typically expect from a general purpose operating system.

In this first installment of C9 Conversations (we sit down with various Microsoft technical leaders to discuss a wide range of topics related to general purpose computing; all in high quality video and audio (big thanks to Tina Summerford for producing this new series)), the topic is cloud computing. What is it, exactly? Why does it matter? What are the challenges involved in taking software to the cloud? What does that mean, exactly? Is Windows Azure an operating system by analogy? What is Windows Azure, exactly? And more..

Yousef will be presenting his ideas on cloud computing and its future at PDC09 as part of the Technical Leaders track. Make sure to attend his talk if you're interested in how Microsoft thinks about the future of cloud computing. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/C9-Conversations-Yousef-Khalidi-on-Cloud-Computing Yousef Khalidi is a Distinguished Engineer with a rich history in both operating system design and distributed computing. Yousef is responsible for the overall design of Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud operating system (which includes the Azure development platform in addition to the "OS", aka Windows Azure). Windows Azure is an operating system in the sense that it supplies a host of core services, process scheduling and management, identity management, etc, that we typically expect from a general purpose operating system. In this first installment of C9 Conversations (we sit down with various Microsoft technical leaders to discuss a wide range of topics related to general purpose computing; all in high quality video and audio (big thanks to Tina Summerford for producing this new series)), the topic is cloud computing. What is it, exactly? Why does it matter? What are the challenges involved in taking software to the cloud? What does that mean, exactly? Is Windows Azure an operating system by analogy? What is Windows Azure, exactly? And more..Yousef will be presenting his ideas on cloud computing and its future at PDC09 as part of the Technical Leaders track. Make sure to attend his talk if you're interested in how Microsoft thinks about the future of cloud computing. 1288 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/C9-Conversations-Yousef-Khalidi-on-Cloud-Computing Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:46:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/C9-Conversations-Yousef-Khalidi-on-Cloud-Computing Charles Charles 4 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/C9-Conversations-Yousef-Khalidi-on-Cloud-Computing/RSS Azure Services Platform C9 Conversations Cloud Computing Operating System PDC09 PDC 2009 Programming Windows Azure Silviu Calinoiu: Inside Windows 7 - Fault Tolerant Heap
Principal Development Lead and rock star developer Silviu Calinoiu is the mastermind behind FTH. Here, we go deep into how FTH works and why it's designed the way it is.

The Fault Tolerant Heap is another example of the low level efficiency built into the system: FTH automatically corrects memory faults that cause applications to crash which has the pleasant side effect of preventing future crashes. How does FTH work, exactly? What types of memory problems does it address, specifically? How do developers monitor FTH events and can they override FTH's behavior? What does this all mean to the average user?

FTH, as an autonomous monitoring and correction system, represents a step in the right direction for the evolution of a more homeostatic general purpose operating system. Simply, Windows is getting smarter in the sense that it's increasingly becoming better at self-regulation and self-healing. Yes, there's a very long way to go, but we're making real progress.

You will continue to learn about recoverability in Windows over the coming months here on C9.  


Tune in. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Silviu-Calinoiu-Inside-Windows-7-Fault-Tolerant-Heap The Fault Tolerant Heap (FTH) is a subsystem of Windows 7 responsible for monitoring application crashes and autonomously applying mitigations to prevent future crashes on a per application basis. For the vast majority of users, FTH will function with no need for intervention or change on their part. Principal Development Lead and rock star developer Silviu Calinoiu is the mastermind behind FTH. Here, we go deep into how FTH works and why it's designed the way it is.The Fault Tolerant Heap is another example of the low level efficiency built into the system: FTH automatically corrects memory faults that cause applications to crash which has the pleasant side effect of preventing future crashes. How does FTH work, exactly? What types of memory problems does it address, specifically? How do developers monitor FTH events and can they override FTH's behavior? What does this all mean to the average user? FTH, as an autonomous monitoring and correction system, represents a step in the right direction for the evolution of a more homeostatic general purpose operating system. Simply, Windows is getting smarter in the sense that it's increasingly becoming better at self-regulation and self-healing. Yes, there's a very long way to go, but we're making real progress.You will continue to learn about recoverability in Windows over the coming months here on C9.  Tune in. 3412 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Silviu-Calinoiu-Inside-Windows-7-Fault-Tolerant-Heap Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:35:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Silviu-Calinoiu-Inside-Windows-7-Fault-Tolerant-Heap Charles Charles 11 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Silviu-Calinoiu-Inside-Windows-7-Fault-Tolerant-Heap/RSS Architecture FTH Kernel Operating System Windows 7 Arun Kishan: Inside Windows 7 - Farewell to the Windows Kernel Dispatcher Lock You've learned about many of the new features of the latest version of the Windows kernel in the Mark Russinovich Inside Windows 7 conversation here on Channel 9. One of Mark’s favorite kernel innovations is the way the Windows 7 kernel manages scheduling of threads and the underlying synchronization primitives that embody kernel thread management.

Prior to Windows 7 (and therefore Windows Server 2008 R2) the Windows kernel dispatcher employed a single lock, the dispatcher lock, which worked well for a relatively small numbers of processors (like 64). However, now that we find ourselves in the midst of the ManyCore era, well, 64 processors aren’t that many... A new strategy was required to scale Windows to large numbers of processors since a single lock is limited in capability, by design: The masterful David Cutler, one of the world's greatest software engineers, wrote the NT scheduler in a time when the notion of affordable 256-processor machines was more science fiction than probable. 

As we learned in the Mark Russinovich video, Windows 7 can now scale to 256 processors thanks to the great engineering of Arun Kishan, a kernel architect you've met on C9 back in the Vista days. In order to promote further scalability of the NT kernel, Arun completely eliminated the dispatcher lock and replaced it with a much finer grained set of synchronization primitives. Gone are the days of contention for a single spinlock. How did Arun pull this off, exactly, you ask? Who is this genius? Well, tune in. Lots of answers await…

Arun's work directly benefits the overall performance of Windows running on many processors and means, simply, Windows can now really scale. Thank you, Arun!

 

Spinlocks are synchronization primitives that cause a processor to busy-wait until the state of the lock’s memory location changes.

 
As the name implies, the dispatcher lock is the fundamental lock associated with the kernel dispatcher, or the scheduler.

 

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Arun-Kishan-Farewell-to-the-Windows-Kernel-Dispatcher-Lock You've learned about many of the new features of the latest version of the Windows kernel in the Mark Russinovich Inside Windows 7 conversation here on Channel 9. One of Mark’s favorite kernel innovations is the way the Windows 7 kernel manages scheduling of threads and the underlying synchronization primitives that embody kernel thread management. Prior to Windows 7 (and therefore Windows Server 2008 R2) the Windows kernel dispatcher employed a single lock, the dispatcher lock, which worked well for a relatively small numbers of processors (like 64). However, now that we find ourselves in the midst of the ManyCore era, well, 64 processors aren’t that many... A new strategy was required to scale Windows to large numbers of processors since a single lock is limited in capability, by design: The masterful David Cutler, one of the world's greatest software engineers, wrote the NT scheduler in a time when the notion of affordable 256-processor machines was more science fiction than probable. As we learned in the Mark Russinovich video, Windows 7 can now scale to 256 processors thanks to the great engineering of Arun Kishan, a kernel architect you've met on C9 back in the Vista days. In order to promote further scalability of the NT kernel, Arun completely eliminated the dispatcher lock and replaced it with a much finer grained set of synchronization primitives. Gone are the days of contention for a single spinlock. How did Arun pull this off, exactly, you ask? Who is this genius? Well, tune in. Lots of answers await…Arun's work directly benefits the overall performance of Windows running on many processors and means, simply, Windows can now really scale. Thank you, Arun!   Spinlocks are synchronization primitives that cause a processor to busy-wait until the state of the lock’s memory location changes.  As the name implies, the dispatcher lock is the fundamental lock associated w 3548 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Arun-Kishan-Farewell-to-the-Windows-Kernel-Dispatcher-Lock Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:28:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Arun-Kishan-Farewell-to-the-Windows-Kernel-Dispatcher-Lock Charles Charles 13 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Arun-Kishan-Farewell-to-the-Windows-Kernel-Dispatcher-Lock/RSS Architecture Arun Kishan Kernel Operating System Programming R2 R2PERF Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 R2 Expert to Expert: Helen Wang and Alex Moshchuk - Inside Gazelle
Gazelle is a Microsoft Research prototype web browser constructed as a multi-principal OS (emphasis on research and prototype).  From the Gazelle Microsoft Research Technical Report: Gazelle’s Browser Kernel is an operating system that exclusively manages resource protection and sharing across web site principals. This construction exposes intricate design issues that no previous work has identified, such as legacy protection of cross-origin script source, and cross-principal, cross-process display and events protection.

Interesting, Captain. This really piqued our curiosity so Erik Meijer and I decided to find out the inside scoop on Gazelle. Why choose an OS architecture to model a web browser? How does it work, exactly? What does multi-principal mean in the context of execution of web pages? Aren't we talking about isolated processes? What happens when a principal is compromised? Is the browser kernel completely isolated from code executing in a principal context(is it possible to "blue screen" Gazelle)? What are the intrinsic challenges with implementing this design? How performant is a multi-principal, kernel-based web browser (what if you have 40 principal contexts running simultaneously, for example)? 

This is a great conversation with Gazelle project lead Helen Wang and Alex Moshchuk, a PhD student intern developer working on the Gazelle project. We cover a lot of ground and Erik and I are unusually curious given the fascinating model Gazelle represents for a truly secure web browser.

Enjoy! This is a birthday present from Channel 9 to you! ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Expert-to-Expert-Gazelle-Operating-System-Architecture-and-Web-Browser-Security Microsoft Research was in the news not too long ago regarding the innovative, outside-the-box research being done by MSR scientists on display at the annual MSR TechFest event. One of the stars of the show was a new web browser project named Gazelle. Gazelle is a Microsoft Research prototype web browser constructed as a multi-principal OS (emphasis on research and prototype).  From the Gazelle Microsoft Research Technical Report: Gazelle’s Browser Kernel is an operating system that exclusively manages resource protection and sharing across web site principals. This construction exposes intricate design issues that no previous work has identified, such as legacy protection of cross-origin script source, and cross-principal, cross-process display and events protection. Interesting, Captain. This really piqued our curiosity so Erik Meijer and I decided to find out the inside scoop on Gazelle. Why choose an OS architecture to model a web browser? How does it work, exactly? What does multi-principal mean in the context of execution of web pages? Aren't we talking about isolated processes? What happens when a principal is compromised? Is the browser kernel completely isolated from code executing in a principal context(is it possible to "blue screen" Gazelle)? What are the intrinsic challenges with implementing this design? How performant is a multi-principal, kernel-based web browser (what if you have 40 principal contexts running simultaneously, for example)? This is a great conversation with Gazelle project lead Helen Wang and Alex Moshchuk, a PhD student intern developer working on the Gazelle project. We cover a lot of ground and Erik and I are unusually curious given the fascinating model Gazelle represents for a truly secure web browser. Enjoy! This is a birthday present from Channel 9 to you! 3133 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Expert-to-Expert-Gazelle-Operating-System-Architecture-and-Web-Browser-Security Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:48:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Expert-to-Expert-Gazelle-Operating-System-Architecture-and-Web-Browser-Security Charles Charles 12 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Expert-to-Expert-Gazelle-Operating-System-Architecture-and-Web-Browser-Security/RSS Architecture Erik Meijer Expert to Expert Gazelle Helen Wang Microsoft Research MS Research Operating System Security Web Browser Mark Russinovich: Pushing the Limits of Windows - Paged and Nonpaged Pool Paged and Nonpaged Pool.

Mark's posts are stellar. The detail, the clarity, the usefulness. Definitely one of my favorite technical Windows-related blogs. The post I linked to specifically is incredibly interesting given that it details a rare, but very painful problem and in process teaches us about some fundamental properties of the Windows kernel (see his other Pushing the Limits posts on Physical and Virtual memory).

C ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Mark-Russinovich-Pushing-the-Limits-of-Windows-Paged-and-Nonpaged-Pool Paged and Nonpaged Pool. Mark's posts are stellar. The detail, the clarity, the usefulness. Definitely one of my favorite technical Windows-related blogs. The post I linked to specifically is incredibly interesting given that it details a rare, but very painful problem and in process teaches us about some fundamental properties of the Windows kernel (see his other Pushing the Limits posts on Physical and Virtual memory). C http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Mark-Russinovich-Pushing-the-Limits-of-Windows-Paged-and-Nonpaged-Pool Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:39:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Mark-Russinovich-Pushing-the-Limits-of-Windows-Paged-and-Nonpaged-Pool Charles Charles 1 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Mark-Russinovich-Pushing-the-Limits-of-Windows-Paged-and-Nonpaged-Pool/RSS Architecture Blogs Kernel Mark Russinovich Operating System OS Windows Dave Probert: Inside Windows 7 - User Mode Scheduler (UMS) Going Deep with windows kernel architect Dave Probert. You may remember him from an early four part episode of Going Deep where he teaches us about general purpose operating system architectures and history: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

That was a great conversation from a few years ago and it's been way too long since we returned to Windows kernel world to converse with and learn from Dr. Probert. Not surprisingly, Dave has been busy innovating the Windows core.

Dave and team, working very closely with the Parallel Computing Platform People, have created a very compelling new user mode thread scheduling/management system in Windows 7. In a nutshell, the User Mode Scheduler provides a new model for high-performance applications to control the execution of threads by allowing applications to schedule, throttle and control the overhead due to blocking system calls. In other words, applications can switch user threads completely in user mode without going through the kernel level scheduler. This frees up the kernel thread scheduler from having to block unnecessarily, which is a very good thing as we move into the age of Many-Core... Speaking of Many-Core, remember the piece we did on the Concurrency Runtime (ConcRT)? ConcRT is built on top of UMS and is the best way to most effectively utilize this new user mode thread scheduling model in Windows 7. 

Make yourself comfortable and spend some time watching and listening to Dave make all of this crystal clear.

This is another great conversation with a fantastic OS architect and Windows kernel professor. Lots to learn here. Enjoy. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Dave-Probert-Inside-Windows-7-User-Mode-Scheduler-UMS Here, we continue our exploration of the morphology of Windows 7 on Going Deep with windows kernel architect Dave Probert. You may remember him from an early four part episode of Going Deep where he teaches us about general purpose operating system architectures and history: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4That was a great conversation from a few years ago and it's been way too long since we returned to Windows kernel world to converse with and learn from Dr. Probert. Not surprisingly, Dave has been busy innovating the Windows core. Dave and team, working very closely with the Parallel Computing Platform People, have created a very compelling new user mode thread scheduling/management system in Windows 7. In a nutshell, the User Mode Scheduler provides a new model for high-performance applications to control the execution of threads by allowing applications to schedule, throttle and control the overhead due to blocking system calls. In other words, applications can switch user threads completely in user mode without going through the kernel level scheduler. This frees up the kernel thread scheduler from having to block unnecessarily, which is a very good thing as we move into the age of Many-Core... Speaking of Many-Core, remember the piece we did on the Concurrency Runtime (ConcRT)? ConcRT is built on top of UMS and is the best way to most effectively utilize this new user mode thread scheduling model in Windows 7. Make yourself comfortable and spend some time watching and listening to Dave make all of this crystal clear.This is another great conversation with a fantastic OS architect and Windows kernel professor. Lots to learn here. Enjoy. 3153 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Dave-Probert-Inside-Windows-7-User-Mode-Scheduler-UMS Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:11:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Dave-Probert-Inside-Windows-7-User-Mode-Scheduler-UMS Charles Charles 18 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Dave-Probert-Inside-Windows-7-User-Mode-Scheduler-UMS/RSS Concurrency Concurrency Runtime Kernel Operating System OS Parallel Computing Parallelism R2 R2PERF Windows 7 Chittur Subbaraman: Inside Windows 7 - Service Controller and Background Processing
1) Windows might start up slower as the service fires up
2) Users may experience sluggish performance as the service runs taking up processing and memory resources
3) Windows might take a long time to shut down as the service shuts down, unwinding itself and cleaning up it's resources
4) The surface area for code-level security breaches is larger(though, since Vista, most services run in a restricted security context)

Chittur Subbaraman, Windows kernel developer extraordinaire, and team spent a great deal of time thinking about and rectifying these problems by re-architecting the Windows 7 Service Controller. They also identified services that don't need to auto run (like a TabletPC Pen service that need not ever run on a desktop (non-Tablet) machine by default). But they went much further than simply figuring out which services can be set to manual start-up state in Windows 7. They added a new feature for service developers based on the trigger pattern: services can be started and shut down via triggers - this means developers are able to specify programmatically when a service needs to start or stop. This allows Wndows to control services in a much more dynamic way so less code has to run in any given user session. The Service Controller monitors and reacts to trigger events as opposed to just running services marked as auto when the system starts. Less code running in the background on Windows means more resources available for foregrond processing, faster start up of sessions and faster shut down.

The great work in the Windows 7 service controller by Chittur and team has a direct impact on the performance of Windows 7. Tune in to learn about the details and history of the service controller (and Task Manager).

Here are some great resources for you to read to get the details behind all of this great engineering in the background processing mechanisms deep inside Windows 7. 

·White paper on Designing Efficient Background Processes.

·PDC talk on Designing Efficient Background Processes.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chittur-Subbaraman-Inside-Windows-7-Service-Controller-and-Background-Processing At any given point, Windows is executing a lot of code. Some of this code runs in the background as services. In pre Windows 7 operating systems some services were set to auto run even though the configuration of the system (installed apps, hardware, etc) did not warrant them running. This had a four-fold potential effect:1) Windows might start up slower as the service fires up2) Users may experience sluggish performance as the service runs taking up processing and memory resources3) Windows might take a long time to shut down as the service shuts down, unwinding itself and cleaning up it's resources4) The surface area for code-level security breaches is larger(though, since Vista, most services run in a restricted security context)Chittur Subbaraman, Windows kernel developer extraordinaire, and team spent a great deal of time thinking about and rectifying these problems by re-architecting the Windows 7 Service Controller. They also identified services that don't need to auto run (like a TabletPC Pen service that need not ever run on a desktop (non-Tablet) machine by default). But they went much further than simply figuring out which services can be set to manual start-up state in Windows 7. They added a new feature for service developers based on the trigger pattern: services can be started and shut down via triggers - this means developers are able to specify programmatically when a service needs to start or stop. This allows Wndows to control services in a much more dynamic way so less code has to run in any given user session. The Service Controller monitors and reacts to trigger events as opposed to just running services marked as auto when the system starts. Less code running in the background on Windows means more resources available for foregrond processing, faster start up of sessions and faster shut down. The great work in the Windows 7 service controller by Chittur and team has a direct impact on the performanc 2640 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chittur-Subbaraman-Inside-Windows-7-Service-Controller-and-Background-Processing Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:39:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chittur-Subbaraman-Inside-Windows-7-Service-Controller-and-Background-Processing Charles Charles 15 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Chittur-Subbaraman-Inside-Windows-7-Service-Controller-and-Background-Processing/RSS Kernel Operating System OS Services Windows 7 Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7 Mark Russinovich? Here, Mark enlightens us on the new kernel constructs in Windows 7 (and, yeah, we do wander up into user mode, but only briefly). One very important change in the Windows 7 kernel is the dismantling of the dispatcher spin lock and redesign and implementation of its functionality. This great work was done by Arun Kishan (you've met him here on C9 last year). EDIT: You can learn exactly what Arun did in eliminating the dispatcher lock and replacing it with a set of synchronization primitives and a new "pre-wait" thread state, here. The direct result of the reworking of the dispatcher lock is that Windows 7 can scale to 256 processors. Further, this enabled the great Landy Wang to tune the Windows Memory Manager to be even more efficient than it already is. Mark also explains (again) what MinWin really is (heck, even I was confused. Not anymore...). MinWin is present in Windows 7. Native support for VHD (boot from VHD anyone?) is another very cool addition to our next general purpose OS. Yes, and there's more!

Tune in. This is a great conversation (if you're into operating systems). It's always great to chat with Mark. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7 How has Windows evolved, as a general purpose operating system and at the lowest levels, in Windows 7? Who better to talk to than Technical Fellow and Windows Kernel guru Mark Russinovich? Here, Mark enlightens us on the new kernel constructs in Windows 7 (and, yeah, we do wander up into user mode, but only briefly). One very important change in the Windows 7 kernel is the dismantling of the dispatcher spin lock and redesign and implementation of its functionality. This great work was done by Arun Kishan (you've met him here on C9 last year). EDIT: You can learn exactly what Arun did in eliminating the dispatcher lock and replacing it with a set of synchronization primitives and a new "pre-wait" thread state, here. The direct result of the reworking of the dispatcher lock is that Windows 7 can scale to 256 processors. Further, this enabled the great Landy Wang to tune the Windows Memory Manager to be even more efficient than it already is. Mark also explains (again) what MinWin really is (heck, even I was confused. Not anymore...). MinWin is present in Windows 7. Native support for VHD (boot from VHD anyone?) is another very cool addition to our next general purpose OS. Yes, and there's more!Tune in. This is a great conversation (if you're into operating systems). It's always great to chat with Mark. 2670 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7 Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:39:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7 Charles Charles 52 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-Inside-Windows-7/RSS Architecture Kernel Mark Russinovich Operating System OS R2 R2PERF Server 2008 R2 w2k8r2 Windows 7 Richard Ward: Windows Architecture - Past, Present and Future Artists embody a diverse set of talents and interests. This gives them a rich array of experiences to draw upon in their work. In the same way, Richard Ward brings an eclectic background and collection of interests to his efforts at Microsoft.  He brings this diversity to his own art of programming within the Windows Core Architecture team.

 
While most Windows developers are focusing on the next version of Windows, Richard and his team are already hard at work on the version which will follow. In this episode of Behind The Code, we will discover what experiences Richard finds most helpful, as he focuses on building out the core infrastructure components of what will, one day, be running on the vast majority of the world’s computers.

Read Richard Ward’s { End Bracket } column in MSDN Magazine.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Behind+The+Code/Richard-Ward-Windows-Architecure-Past-Present-and-Future Artists embody a diverse set of talents and interests. This gives them a rich array of experiences to draw upon in their work. In the same way, Richard Ward brings an eclectic background and collection of interests to his efforts at Microsoft.  He brings this diversity to his own art of programming within the Windows Core Architecture team.   While most Windows developers are focusing on the next version of Windows, Richard and his team are already hard at work on the version which will follow. In this episode of Behind The Code, we will discover what experiences Richard finds most helpful, as he focuses on building out the core infrastructure components of what will, one day, be running on the vast majority of the world’s computers. Read Richard Ward’s { End Bracket } column in MSDN Magazine. 3514 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Behind+The+Code/Richard-Ward-Windows-Architecure-Past-Present-and-Future Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:30:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Behind+The+Code/Richard-Ward-Windows-Architecure-Past-Present-and-Future Charles Charles 0 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Behind+The+Code/Richard-Ward-Windows-Architecure-Past-Present-and-Future/RSS Architects Architecture Kernel Microsoft Personalities Operating System Windows Rick Rashid: Leading Microsoft into the Future with Research Microsoft Research Cambridge turned 10 years old this week. Happy birthday MSRC! I was lucky enough to have been there (in fact I am still there, or is that here, as I type) and conducted several interviews with some of the many unusually intelligent and passionate folks who think about the future of computing and the role computation plays in every aspect of our lives (from new interactive devices that promise to make the business of home life more interesting and less stressful, tools and methodologies that will help Microsoft quickly respond to industry changes (can you say many core?) to understanding, via accurate modeling, incredibly complex biological and ecological systems)

In this interview, I sit down with the fearless leader of Microsoft Research (he started MSR, actually), Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President and computer scientist (he's a famous OS guy (you'll meet another one in a subsequent interview)). We talk about the role MSR plays in Microsoft's strategic vision, what's expected of MSR scientists, what attracts academics to industry, the state of operating system research and more. Enjoy.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Rick-Rashid-Leading-Microsoft-into-the-Future-with-Research Microsoft Research Cambridge turned 10 years old this week. Happy birthday MSRC! I was lucky enough to have been there (in fact I am still there, or is that here, as I type) and conducted several interviews with some of the many unusually intelligent and passionate folks who think about the future of computing and the role computation plays in every aspect of our lives (from new interactive devices that promise to make the business of home life more interesting and less stressful, tools and methodologies that will help Microsoft quickly respond to industry changes (can you say many core?) to understanding, via accurate modeling, incredibly complex biological and ecological systems)In this interview, I sit down with the fearless leader of Microsoft Research (he started MSR, actually), Rick Rashid, Senior Vice President and computer scientist (he's a famous OS guy (you'll meet another one in a subsequent interview)). We talk about the role MSR plays in Microsoft's strategic vision, what's expected of MSR scientists, what attracts academics to industry, the state of operating system research and more. Enjoy. 1353 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Rick-Rashid-Leading-Microsoft-into-the-Future-with-Research Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:20:09 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Rick-Rashid-Leading-Microsoft-into-the-Future-with-Research Charles Charles 8 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Rick-Rashid-Leading-Microsoft-into-the-Future-with-Research/RSS Microsoft Research Microsoft Exeutives MS Research MSR Cambridge 10Years Operating System OS Mark Russinovich: From Winternals to Microsoft, On Windows Security, Windows CoreArch Mark Russinovich. He's an OS kernel expert and a co-founder of Winternals; a company that produced must-have operating system and development utilities for Windows (Winternals is now a Microsoft subsidiary as we purchased them in July, 2006. Yay!).

Mark is now a Technical Fellow in Windows and is a member of the Windows Core Architecture team (you met some of the other big brains on the CoreArch team last year).

Here we talk frankly about Mark's history, his coming to Microsoft, Windows security, what the CoreArch team does, what his role is, etc. Tune in. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-From-Winternals-to-Microsoft-On-Windows-Security-Windows-CoreArch If you write code on Windows or like to know what goes on under the hood in Windows, then you've no doubt heard of Mark Russinovich. He's an OS kernel expert and a co-founder of Winternals; a company that produced must-have operating system and development utilities for Windows (Winternals is now a Microsoft subsidiary as we purchased them in July, 2006. Yay!). Mark is now a Technical Fellow in Windows and is a member of the Windows Core Architecture team (you met some of the other big brains on the CoreArch team last year). Here we talk frankly about Mark's history, his coming to Microsoft, Windows security, what the CoreArch team does, what his role is, etc. Tune in. 3258 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-From-Winternals-to-Microsoft-On-Windows-Security-Windows-CoreArch Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:21:00 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-From-Winternals-to-Microsoft-On-Windows-Security-Windows-CoreArch Charles Charles 37 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mark-Russinovich-From-Winternals-to-Microsoft-On-Windows-Security-Windows-CoreArch/RSS Architecture Kernel Mark Russinovich Microsoft Personalities Operating System OS Reliability Security UAC Windows Vista Raj Jhanwar: Windows Vista Component Management Interface (CMI) how, exactly)? How do OEMs like Dell or HP or Whoever get Windows skus onto the millions of PCs they make? Closer to home, how does Microsoft build Windows skus, anyway? How do we build Windows for that matter? 

Did you know that Windows Vista introduces a completely new model that effectively componentizes the build and installation process of Windows? Did you know that that Windows Vista contains information about every component dependency that ships with the OS? Did you know that Windows Update will no longer be enabled to install components that break things because of unforseen dependencies? This is HUGE.

Meet Raj Jhanwar, a Program Manager in Windows. He and team have been working on CMI since XP shipped. What is CMI? Tune in. Learn. There are some nuggets of information in this interview that most of you have never heard about before... ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Raj-Jhanwar-Windows-Vista-Component-Management-Interface-CMI Ever wonder how we make Windows skus (not why necessarily, though we do cover that briefly, but how, exactly)? How do OEMs like Dell or HP or Whoever get Windows skus onto the millions of PCs they make? Closer to home, how does Microsoft build Windows skus, anyway? How do we build Windows for that matter? Did you know that Windows Vista introduces a completely new model that effectively componentizes the build and installation process of Windows? Did you know that that Windows Vista contains information about every component dependency that ships with the OS? Did you know that Windows Update will no longer be enabled to install components that break things because of unforseen dependencies? This is HUGE. Meet Raj Jhanwar, a Program Manager in Windows. He and team have been working on CMI since XP shipped. What is CMI? Tune in. Learn. There are some nuggets of information in this interview that most of you have never heard about before... 2462 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Raj-Jhanwar-Windows-Vista-Component-Management-Interface-CMI Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:02:09 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Raj-Jhanwar-Windows-Vista-Component-Management-Interface-CMI Charles Charles 10 http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Raj-Jhanwar-Windows-Vista-Component-Management-Interface-CMI/RSS CMI Operating System OS Software Composability Windows Vista Windows Vista PreOS Environment: What happens before the OS loads
This is a rare interview with some of the developers nobody sees during the day (Smiley), who live and breathe in the preOS space (this is the single threaded world of pre-operating system start-up context where there is no memory manager, no object manager, no kernel period - it takes highly skilled developers to write code in this memory confined space, the land of real mode code and the BIOS).

Meet Jamie Schwartz, Development Lead, Windows Kernel Dev team, and Andrew Ritz, Development Manager, Windows Kernel Dev team. They tell us all about the wonderful world of preOS. Enjoy. ]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Windows-Vista-PreOS-Environment-What-happens-before-the-OS-loads What happens, exactly, when you turn your computer on? Yeah, you see the black screen and words scroll by, then, finally, the Vista startup sound... But, there's a good deal of code that runs in this preOS environment, much of it composed in languages you've probably never written (like 16-Bit Real Mode code). What does the BIOS do, anyway? Why do we need a BIOS? Vista can run without a BIOS: It supports UEFI. What's UEFI, anyway? This is a rare interview with some of the developers nobody sees during the day (), who live and breathe in the preOS space (this is the single threaded world of pre-operating system start-up context where there is no memory manager, no object manager, no kernel period - it takes highly skilled developers to write code in this memory confined space, the land of real mode code and the BIOS).Meet Jamie Schwartz, Development Lead, Windows Kernel Dev team, and Andrew Ritz, Development Manager, Windows Kernel Dev team. They tell us all about the wonderful world of preOS. Enjoy. 2096 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Windows-Vista-PreOS-Environment-What-happens-before-the-OS-loads Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:53:36 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Windows-Vista-PreOS-Environment-What-happens-before-the-OS-loads Charles Charles 14 http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Windows-Vista-PreOS-Environment-What-happens-before-the-OS-loads/RSS Kernel Operating System OS Windows Vista