Channel 9 - Entries tagged with OS

Drawbridge: A new form of virtualization for application sandboxing

Charles — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:27:19 GMT

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

Landy Wang - Windows Memory Manager

The Channel 9 Team — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:24:12 GMT

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.

Mark Russinovich: Pushing the Limits of Windows - Paged and Nonpaged Pool

Charles — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:39:00 GMT

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

Dave Probert: Inside Windows 7 - User Mode Scheduler (UMS)

Charles — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:11:00 GMT

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 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.

Chittur Subbaraman: Inside Windows 7 - Service Controller and Background Processing

Charles — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:39:00 GMT

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 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.

Mark Russinovich: Inside Windows 7

Charles — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:39:00 GMT

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.

Rick Rashid: Leading Microsoft into the Future with Research

Charles — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:20:09 GMT

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.

Mark Russinovich: From Winternals to Microsoft, On Windows Security, Windows CoreArch

Charles — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:21:00 GMT

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.

Raj Jhanwar: Windows Vista Component Management Interface (CMI)

Charles — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:02:09 GMT

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...

Windows Vista PreOS Environment: What happens before the OS loads

Charles — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:53:36 GMT

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.

Processes Gone Wild: Understanding Windows Vista Reliability Mechanics

Charles — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 20:53:58 GMT

Ever wonder about the physiology of a dying process? How, exactly, does an OS, like Windows Vista for example, know when a process is dying or hung or just out of its mind? What does Vista do, exactly, when it encounters a troubled process?

Well, Kinshuman, a Windows core os dev lead, Cornel Lupu, a Windows core os dev mananger, Jeff Braunstein, a reliability PM, and Siamak Ahari, a reliability test lead, will show you exactly how Windows Vista deals with troubled processes. We also dig into what happens with Dr. Watson data and how Dr. Watson has been improved in Vista. Of course, we spend a good deal of time talking about the complexities of operating system reliability in general. Basically, we have a great conversation about a giant topic.

There are some fundamental architectural changes in how Vista detects and deals with processes that need to be dealt with... You can think of processes as cellular units. In biological systems like you and me, we have powerful regulation mechanisms that deal with cells gone bad. Vista has similar constructs and we dig into them in this interview with some of the folks who built them.

Transactional Vista: Kernel Transaction Manager and friends (TxF, TxR)

Charles — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:48:29 GMT

Windows Vista is the first general purpose consumer-grade OS that provides transactional support (ACID) for file IO and Windows Registry modification operations (these are only two of the consumers of KTM - point is, you are enabled to write your own). In this interview, we meet Jon Cargille, the software developer who owns KTM, and Christian Allred, the software developer who owns TxF (Transactional File System). If you are curious about how KTM and TxF work and how you can leverage their functionality in your applications on Vista, this interview is for you. We also briefly touch on TxR (Transactional Registry).

Windows Vista Diagnostics: Moving closer to a self-healing OS

Charles — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:39:00 GMT

Sometimes problems occur (system or application level exceptions happen, applications might crash, hard disks fail) in complicated systems like modern personal computers.

In Vista, the system is capable of understanding a wide variety of problems as they occur and, in many cases, fix them without disrupting the user. In certain cases, the system is unable to automatically repair a given problem so Vista will inform the user of actions to take to solve the problem.

Even for hardware critical failures like a hard disk crash, Vista will help the user understand the problem and guide them through a set of steps to get to a working solution (in the case of hard disk failure, obviously the solution is back your data up! Vista will actually run you through a helpful backup "wizard" in this case, but you'll need to get some hardware to store your data...).

Meet Melur Raghuraman, Development Manager, Matthew Kerner, Lead PM, and Jeff Meng, Development Lead. These are some of the people responsible for making Vista our most reliable OS to date. They are members of the Windows Reliability team.

You will meet more of the Reliabiliy People as Vista Week continues here on Channel 9.

Windows Vista "Time Warp": Understanding Vista's Backup and Restore Technologies

Charles — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:34:42 GMT

"Time Warp" is an awfully cool code name, but an even cooler file system technology that's part of Vista. So cool in fact, that I am taking the chance of getting yelled at for revealing it here as it's frowned upon (typically) to use code names for products that have already shipped...

In this second installment for Channel 9's Vista Week coverage (remember, 9 days, not 5 or 7- and that's 9 work days....), we meet some of the folks who wrote Previous Versions - a Vista technology that utilizes the services of VSS (Volume Shadow Copy) to restore several versions of modified files, enabling users to travel back in time should the need arise. (Dev's, be sure to check out what's new in VSS here). We're pleased to introduce Adi Oltean, Software Developer Extraordinaire, Eduardo Laureno, Program Manager, and Jeffrey Saathoff, the software engineer who wrote the UI you see for Previous Versions.

Vista backs up your files for you automatically (of course, there is a limit to how much the system can maintain as back up data on your disk. Watch the video to learn more...) It's another example of an innovative low-level technology designed with the the user in mind. Vista is a highly user-centric OS. This theme will continue to shine through as we progress through Vista Week... (And you'll notice how often we emphasize this in the interviews... In fact, you should count the number of times you hear that Vista is user-centric coming from behind the camera for the next serveral days.)

Be sure to check out the Vista Week coverage on 10.

Welcome to Vista Week - Michael Wallent: Windows Vista for Developers

Charles — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:53:42 GMT

Welcome to Vista Week on Channel 9. For 9 days (that's one Channel 9 week) we will be focusing our content on the newest general purpose operating system from Microsoft, Windows Vista. Windows Vista was designed from the ground up with the user in mind. From reliability, performance, security, networking to the shell, Vista is truly our most user-centric OS to date. Vista Week on Channel 9 aims to address this claim by digging into the details behind it.

Here, Michael Wallent, General Manager and long time WPF team lead who also happens to be extremely passionate about Vista, talks with us about Vista from a developer perspective (describing what makes Vista appealing to developers and why). Of course, developers are also users and Vista is a highly tuned user-centric OS to the nth degree, so Michael and Charles wax on this as well. Enjoy!

Be sure to catch 10's Vista Week. Great stuff!

Rob Short: Operating System Evolution

Charles — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:00:32 GMT

Rob Short is an operating system pioneer. He helped Microsoft transition from the 1980s with DOS and 16 bit windows into the 32 bit world with Windows NT in the 1990s. More recently, Rob was part of the team that further enhanced windows to take advantage of the 64 bit processors of the new millennium. Today he is the Vice President overseeing development of windows kernel and virtualization technologies.

You can see more Rob here and meet some of the "core" architects he mentions in the video.

Scott Field: How secure is Vista, really? - Part II

Charles — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 21:26:12 GMT

This is part two of our discussion with Scott Field, one of the minds behind Vista's security architecture (hint: he likes the way onions are constructed...). Jeremy Mazner helps conduct this interview, which contains explicit whiteboard scenes and frank talk about security and the future of security in Windows. User discretion is advised. Tune in.

See part I here.

Scott Field: How secure is Vista, really? - Part I

Charles — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 17:26:43 GMT

Scott Field is an Architect who's been working on software security at Microsoft for twelve years. His most recent work has been focused on improving security in general purpose monolithic operating systems, from the kernel to the shell. You've heard a lot about how Vista is our most secure OS ever. Now, sit back and learn exactly why we feel this accurate. Here we learn how and why Vista will do a great job protecting you from harm from one of the minds behind Vista's overhauled and much improved core security architecture.

In part 1 of this two part series, Scott takes us through a historical perspective of security at Microsoft and outlines what's new in Vista. In Part 2, we go whiteboarding and dig into the architecture of Vista security. The venerable Jeremy Mazner, technical evangelist and software developer, joins me in conducting this interview.

The Advancement of Windows: Ales Holecek - Windows Shell (Windows Explorer, Desktop Search, UAC, Aer

Charles — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:42:19 GMT

We recently had a conversation with Ales Holecek, Director of Development for the Windows Shell team (Raymond Chen, the famous Win32 blogger, works for him...). Ales spends most of the time answering a single, broad question: What is the Windows Vista shell?

Of course, you can't talk about Windows Vista shell without talking about UAC (User Account Control), Windows Explorer, Aero, and Desktop Search, right?

The Advancement of Windows: Michael Fortin - Windows Vista SuperFetch

Charles — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 22:28:04 GMT

Michael Fortin is a Distingushed Engineer and leads the team at Microsoft responsible for the overall performance of Windows (the folks who think up and write the algorithms that help make Windows Vista intelligently performant. Intelligently performant? What does that mean? Tune in...).

I recently sat down with Michael to discuss one of the key new performance enhancing technologies in Windows Vista: SuperFetch. You've probably heard about this aptly-named system-level technology (way to go Marketing. Finally...), but you probably don't know very much about how it actually works and what it means to Windows in terms of the evolution of the system.

The Advancement of Windows: Narayanan Ganapathy - Windows Vista IO

Charles — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:25:06 GMT

From the kernel to the shell, Windows Vista is a very different OS than XPSP2. How so?

Here, Charles interviews Architect Narayanan Ganapathy whose team of highly skilled engineers write the Windows IO system, driver frameworks and related technologies. So, what, exactly, is new in Windows Vista with regard to IO? What does it mean, exactly, to users and developers?

Tune in. Learn.

Arun Kishan - Process Management in Windows Vista

Charles — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:28:42 GMT

Ever wonder how threads and processes are managed in Windows? What's new in Windows Vista in terms of Process Management? Vista introduces a new type of process called a protected process. What are "protected processes"? How do they work? What's a Process, anyway? A thread? Here, Arun Kishan, the developer who works on Windows' Process Manager sub-component talks about all this and more. If you want to learn how processing happens in Windows, then watch this video.

Check out Arun's whitepaper on Protected Processes.

Singularity IV: Return of the UI

Charles — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:18:00 GMT

Here is the long-awaited demo of the latest incarnation of Singularity, a research operating system written primarily in safe C#. See Singularity III: Return of the SIP, here.

Singularity III: Revenge of the SIP

Adam Kinney — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 21:16:17 GMT

It's been a while since we checked in with the Singularity folks over in MSR Redmond. You know, the usual suspects like Jim Larus and Galen Hunt. So, Charles went and visited them recently to see where they are with Singularity, see what they're up to, what's new... As you may expect, they are doing some really interesting work with, among other novel software constructs, SIPs (Software Isolated Processes). Learn all about them and how they are architected into the Singularity system. Yes, we get Galen on the whiteboard again. This time, you will also meet the newest member of the Singularity team, Mark Aiken, Software Developer, who's been working on some interesting hardware protection stuff in Singularity. It's always great to spend time with the Singularity folks. Oh yeah, this time we get a demo of Singularity.

TechNet Radio - An interview with Mike Benkovich on the future of IT

mward — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:44:06 GMT

Bringing a wealth of experience from having worked in a variety of roles including architect, project manager, developer and technical writer, Mike Benkovich is a published author with WROX Press and APress Books, writing primarily about getting the most from your SQL Server database. Since appearing in Microsoft's DevCast in 1994, Mike has presented technical information at seminars, conferences and corporate boardrooms across America. In this episode, he talks with Michael Murphy about his experiences and the future of IT.