Win2K based on Unix: Fact or Fiction...?

[fkloster]

No flamin'. Just explainin'...

 

[Rogue]

Win2k is more a compilation of things done right in several different OSs over the years. I wouldn't say it's exactly "based on Unix" but I would say it has "borrowed" some ideas from Unix, Netware, OS/2, and maybe even MacOS.

 

[Noriaki]

No...Win2k is NT5
NT is microsoft's high end operating system.
It's intended to compete in the same market, but it's not really the same thing.

It's kind of like x86 vs Apple....they accomplish the same things really but in rather different ways.

That's not really a good analogy...but it's that kind of thing...

 

[Train]

The Memory Management and crashed thread recovery imporovements in Win2k over NT 4 have SIMILARITIES to the classic Unix cores. But in no way does this make Win2k(NT 5) at all "based" on Unix.

 

[fkloster]

thanks.

 

[miniMUNCH]

MY dad used to always tell me: If all the UNIX OS vendors (AT&T, HP, SUN, IBM, DEC, etc.) had gotten together and standardized UNIX from the beginning, Microsoft wouldn't exist today becuase there would not have been a need or market opening for DOS and, later, Windows.

UNIX still had/has many superiorities over windows... and slowly windows (via NT has been evolving into a "UNIX-like" OS, borrowing a concept here and there...file security, exception detection, SMP, blah blah blah.

The win2000 kernel doesn't have to look to the same as UNIX on paper to be say that winNT/2000 is based on UNIX...if it's structured similiarly and has the same functionality and feature set as UNIX then it is fair to say that win2000 is based on UNIX. But perhaps "based" is not the proper description.

MS is not trying to make a UNIX OS...MS is trying to make a robust/reliable OS that it is worthy to run/suppport critical applications. In so doing...they are borrowing many of the goods ides and features from UNIX. But like someone else said above...they are probably borrowing ideas and methods from Apple, OS2, AS400, OS390, and others as well.

I would surmise that they're actually trying to borrow/implemnt as many ideas as possible from AS400 and OS390, even more so than UNIX, because these OS's are the current epitomy (sp?) of reliability and robust operation, albeit on a different hardware scale. OS390, especially, is an absolute rock of a OS and features the best scalability of any OS available today that I know of...which isn't saying a whole lot.
The same OS390 install can run on one little RS box or can run a massive cluster of big-iron mainframes.

 

[Rogue]

Right miniMUNCH. In true Microsoft style, they "borrowed" a lot of concepts from other OS's and implemented them in their own. It is Microsoft's desire to be as stable as UNIX is in the server environment.

 

[LocutusX]

I'm surprised no-one knows about the history of Windows NT...

As you all should know, Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5. The first public Windows NT release was probably NT 3.0, while NT 3.51 was the first to gain momentum in the market.

Anyways Windows NT was originally designed by a troupe of engineers/developers originally hailing from Digital Equipment Corporation. Remember them? They were all members of the design team of Digital's VAX VMS mainframe (?) operating system. As a result, the first NT's had many similarities with the VAX VMS operating system. Of course, since the days of Windows NT 3.0, there has been a lot of development on the NT codebase so I doubt the similarities are still there in Windows 2000.

It's an interesting coincidence that if you take VMS and increment each of the letters by one, you get WNT... Windows NT!

And going back to the UNIX vs. NT thing... there is a VERY major difference between NT and UNIX that pops into mind immediately (I could have given you a list but I stayed up all night writing a Java webserver that uses UDP instead of TCP... ugh!!) is that most Unices use a monolithic kernel, which Windows NT supposedly uses a microkernel architecture. The exact name for it is, I think, the "mach" microkernel, based on work at CMU.EDU during the mid to late 80's. While monolithic kernels have been around for ages.

 

[Macaw]

LocutusX is right. In addition, there are a few other links:

1. TCP/IP is a unixism.
2. NT implements some unix utils to be POSIX compliant. More marketing than anything else.

Rogue and others are pretty much talking out their collective arses. The original question was asking if W2k was based on Unix and the answer is no.

 

[Noriaki]

Microsoft *claims* Windows NT is a microkernel. I don't know if I buy that though.

But it's certainly not as monolithic as Unix...Virtual memory runs as a user process for one thing....which is definately a Microkernel style decision...Mini-kernel maybe? heheh

Besides Microsoft also claims NT is more secure than Unix



<< It's an interesting coincidence that if you take VMS and increment each of the letters by one, you get WNT... Windows NT! >>

that's really cool...I knew VMS engineers worked on the original NT...but I'd never noticed that.

I've often wondered where the NT came from...maybe now I know !?!?

I guess if I paint my chevy red, becuase ford had red cars first my car is based on a ford? That's about as close a relation you can make between Win2k and Unix...I'm sure Win2k has used some of the unix ideas over the course of time...but it's certainly not &quot;based&quot; on Unix.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Hey thanks LoctusX and Macaw...I learn a lot on this board every day becuase of guys like you.

I used a VAX VMS system quite a bit in school...HATED IT. Explains why NT bugged the crap out of me.

 

[emjem]

MS Dos is &quot;based&quot; on IMB Dos.

MS Windows is based on the Apple gui.

NT is based on ??

Gates isn't a computer geek, he's a freekin marketing genius.

 

[Train]

lol, emjem, that was the most ignorant post ive ever seen.

 

[Rogue]

Okay Macaw, where the hell did I say that Win2k was &quot;based on Unix&quot;. I said nothing of the sort. I said that Microsoft &quot;borrowed&quot; ideas from those OS's. I never said anyting in the realm of Win2k being Unix based. Read before you make accusations. Thanks.

 

[NOX]

<< It's an interesting coincidence that if you take VMS and increment each of the letters by one, you get WNT... Windows NT! >>

Interesting.

 

[Alfred]

I remember I have read something that NT is based on microsof's unix, at the 80s, the days when the standard OS is unix, and some company open-sourced unix and may companies like Sun get the source code and started their own unix os. I think the microsoft's unix was named something started with &quot;hel????&quot;, and microsft develope nt base on that unix, that's why nt has many attributes of unix oses.

Correct me if I am wrong.
Alfred

 

[LocutusX]

AFAIK, Microsoft's UNIX was SCO UNIX... don't know if that's still around.

But I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with Windows NT. They probably ran them as completley seperate operations.

 

[CQuinn]

My $.02

Microsoft's UNIX was a variant on Xenix, a low end Unix that had been attempted
for the 80286 processor. Xenix was pulled from the market years before Windows
NT was developed.

Alfred, sorry, no official UNIX was ever open sourced, the only Unix that had
any type of open development (back then) was the Berkeley distribution, which
I believe SCO later took control of. All the other companies that had Unices
had to buy a license from AT&amp;T Bell labs to use it.

Much of NT was based on development code left over from the IBM/MS collaboration
on OS/2. IIRC, for a short time MS marketed their next generation operating system
as OS/2 NT, before renaming it to Windows NT.
BTW: OS/2 was supposed to stand for &quot;Operating System - Second Generation&quot;, or
something like that.

I believe David Cutler was one of the engineers that came to MS from DEC, and as
the story goes, the reason he left was because he wanted to try out some OS ideas
that Digital didn't want to implement in VMS.

The NT Kernel is microkernel influenced, but still exhibits much of the behaviour
of a monolithic kernel. The &quot;mach&quot; kernel has been an interesting design idea,
but I think that NeXTStep was the only commercial OS to actually apply it.


emjem,

MS Dos and IBM PC Dos were the same thing when they first came out. IBM licensed
DOS 1.0 - 4.0 from MS.

MS Windows, The Mac, GEM, and even parts of the Amiga all came from design ideas
produced at the Xerox Palo Alto research facility (PARC).

 

[alpineranger]

I read once that the underpinnings of NT were built with the microkernel concept in mind, but the structure of the stuff in memory is what you'd expect from a monolithic design. All said, I think that anyone who doesn't have to work on the OS or close to it has to worry about the bowels of any OS, but rather the different schools of thought when it comes to OS design exist to make life easier and more productive for the people who are responsible for making the code.
Another sidenote: I'm sure we've all know how NT was strongly influenced by OS/2, and how OS/2 was in turn strongly influenced by UNIX. However, I remember reading that MS-DOS is (was) heavily based on CP/M. In fact, I think that Microsoft bought CP/M from its original creators and ported and modified it to beget the x86 OS we all remember. So all the people who say that VAX VMS and NT have a lot in common may be in fact confusing NT with DOS.

CQuinn: Xerox PARC was influential not in the design style of Operating Systems so much as it was involved in research into user interfaces.

LocutusX: SCO unix is alive, and I know many companies support it.

To all: I think we are all confusing 3 different things when dealing with all these OSs.
1) User interface design
2) Overall OS design (by this I mean the &quot;school of design&quot; used to organize the constituent parts of the OS, but does not have any bearing on the functionality of the final product)
3) Modern OS features (multithreading, virtual memory, protected memory, etc.)

These are three distinct things. Two different OSs may be similar in any number of these areas. I think that the original question was intended to be very limited in the scope of how exactly Win2k was &quot;based on&quot; Unix (we need a better definition), because a general going-over of all the smiliarities and geneses of features and qualities that comprise an operating system is a very complex issue. Finally, let us not forget that over the decades that UNIX has been with us, what is now System V UNIX has gone through so many variations that it could be itself classified as a dozen or more separate operating systems. (In particular, I believe that the kernel was once 15kb or so, and this for a &quot;monolithic&quot; kernel!)

Sorry for the length of this post. Please don't flame me if I have my facts mixed up, because I'm recalling this all from things I read years ago, haven't studied in any depth, and which until now, I've had no reason to recall.

 

[Macaw]

Yeah Dave Cutler is still at Microsoft. I recommend &quot;Triumph of the Nerds&quot; which is a PBS (available on video) three part series on how Apple/IBM/Microsoft/Sun/Oracle all did battle and how Xerox Parc plays into the mess.

To say NT is based on VMS is still a bit of a stretch. Cutler was frustrated with Digital because they would not give him the green light on creating NT so Microsoft recruited him and about 10 others from Digital. They were given free reign to create the OS of their liking. This was one of the things that lead to the breakup of MS and IBM. Besides the culture clashes, MS had its own ideas on how a 32-bit OS should be done and so they took a chance and severed the relationship with IBM and dumped their interest in OS/2.

I have a hard time saying NT is based on anything. It has obvious influence from VMS/OS2/Unix/DOS but that's only because those were the OS's that existed and technology is built upon technology. Duh. Certainly none of the code base was used from those OS's. I also like to give credit where it is due. GUI's, mice, WYSIWYG, laser printers, ethernet -- thank you very much Xerox PARC.

Other &quot;killer apps/inventions&quot; like Lotus 123, the world wide web, e-mail, XML, the hard drive, etc. come from varied places. To demonize some vendor (eg Microsoft) because they adopt and use these killer apps makes no sense. Why not demonize vendors who *don't* adopt the killer apps.

Rouge wrote above It is Microsoft's desire to be as stable as UNIX is in the server environment ... please show me any 3rd party test that shows unix to be more stable than W2K server. Gartner's, ZDNet, Infoworld ?

Alpineranger: I thought SCO went tits up last year? At least I saw something about that on news.com.

 

[joohang]

Noriaki,

NT is the abbreviation for &quot;New Technology&quot;

 

[alpineranger]

I wasn't talking about the company SCO. The software is still being used, so it's not gone in a Commodore 64 kind of way.

 

[Rogue]

Macaw,

Are you saying that Unix, properly implemented, is not generally more stable than a Win2k Server setup? Granted, I have an NT box right now that is a few weeks over a year without a reboot, but what I said was what I meant, Microsoft is trying to equal the uptime of the average Unix box which easily have uptimes of several months to years without a reboot. I think Microsoft is fairly close on this one, but again, it is wholly dependant upon the administration of the system(s) running the OS.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

joohang, it's not.