Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems

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    Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems


    Posted: 12 May 2013
    "I Contribute to the Windows Kernel. We Are Slower Than Other Operating Systems. Here Is Why."

    I was explaining on Hacker News why Windows fell behind Linux in terms of operating system kernel performance and innovation. And out of nowhere an anonymous Microsoft developer who contributes to the Windows NT kernel wrote a fantastic and honest response acknowledging this problem and explaining its cause. His post has been deleted! Why the censorship? I am reposting it here. This is too insightful to be lost. [Edit: The anonymous poster himself deleted his post as he thought it was too cruel and did not help make his point, which is about the social dynamics of spontaneous contribution. However he let me know he does not mind the repost at the condition I redact the SHA1 hash info, which I did.] [Edit: A second statement, apologetic, has been made by the anonymous person. See update at the bottom.]
    Source

    A Guy
    A Guy's Avatar Posted By: A Guy
    12 May 2013



  1. Posts : 12,364
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       #1

    Ouch. Worse part is that it's not surprising
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  2. Posts : 568
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       #2

    It seems that the anonymous person from MS was just venting some frustration in the first posting, that he promptly rescinded in the second one, quote:
    All this has gotten out of control. I was much too harsh, and I didn't intend this as some kind of massive exposé. This is just grumbling. I didn't appreciate the appetite people outside Microsoft have for Kremlinology. I should have thought through my post much more thoroughly. I want to apologize for presenting a misleading impression of what it's like on the inside.

    I also want to apologize for what I said about devdiv. Look: I might disagree with the priorities of our compiler team, and I might be mystified by why certain C++ features took longer to implement for us than for the competition, but seriously good people work on the compiler. Of course they know what reference cycles are. We're one of the only organizations on earth that's built an impressive optimizing compiler from scratch, for crap's sake.
    Is Windows kernel slower than Linux, or that was just an attention getting statement as well?
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  3. Posts : 640
    Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit Build 7600
       #3

    Well... I'm not that in fond of knowing about kernel stuff and such... but this guy is not realizing that maybe is not all the fault from the Windows NT kernel but maybe other stuff that slows down the system?... He is not taking into account that Linux runs without any sort of AV protection (and that means realtime protection) just because there is no malware (or seem not to exist at least) for that OS, but if you see Windows, you see that you need an AV protection + patches + firewall + any stuff I can possibly forget so far... And that, slows down even the best OS in market...

    Doesn't he realize why Windows 8 seems faster than Windows 7 in terms of processing cycles? Simple... W8 includes it's own AV software, that integrates all its features into the kernel itself...

    I think, at least in my very humble oppinion, that is really unfair to say that Windows kernel is slower than others... because we are not taking into account all the things I said before...
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  4. Posts : 4,049
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       #4

    Development and Integration


    FerchogtX said:
    Well... I'm not that in fond of knowing about kernel stuff and such... but this guy is not realizing that maybe is not all the fault from the Windows NT kernel but maybe other stuff that slows down the system?... He is not taking into account that Linux runs without any sort of AV protection (and that means realtime protection) just because there is no malware (or seem not to exist at least) for that OS, but if you see Windows, you see that you need an AV protection + patches + firewall + any stuff I can possibly forget so far... And that, slows down even the best OS in market...

    Doesn't he realize why Windows 8 seems faster than Windows 7 in terms of processing cycles? Simple... W8 includes it's own AV software, that integrates all its features into the kernel itself...

    I think, at least in my very humble oppinion, that is really unfair to say that Windows kernel is slower than others... because we are not taking into account all the things I said before...
    I thought that he meant development/integration of new kernel features/improvements, not kernel performance.

    He seemed to be saying that internal culture, policies and "politics" are responsible.
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  5. Posts : 1,653
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       #5

    I stopped reading it early on when I saw this: "We started caring about security because pre-SP3 Windows XP was an existential threat to the business"
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       #6

    GeneO said:
    I stopped reading it early on when I saw this: "We started caring about security because pre-SP3 Windows XP was an existential threat to the business"
    And once again he forgets to say that SP2 came alongside SP4 for Windows 2000 (Unless I'm mistaken) because of Blaster worm... if Windows weren't the main target for this dammed hackers, XP as well as many versions wouldn't get even one SP to begin with... better now, patches and updates would be rather small and less frecuent...

    Is just not fair to compare this vs Linux and its almost zero attack rate...
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  7. Posts : 53,363
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    Thread Starter
       #7

    I tend to think, even if he was venting, that the issues in his first post were actual things he deals with. And then he thought better of it, and got a little scared, so backed off. I think any engineer will tell you that the scenario of politics in developing is all too common. A Guy
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  8. Posts : 10,994
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       #8

    A Guy said:
    I tend to think, even if he was venting, that the issues in his first post were actual things he deals with. And then he thought better of it, and got a little scared, so backed off. I think any engineer will tell you that the scenario of politics in developing is all too common. A Guy
    I think that's a spot on evaluation, Bill. No matter how talented a developer, engineer, et al, they are all marching to the beat of the drummers in upper level management.
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  9. Posts : 12,364
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       #9

    itto:

    Read what is written, not what you read into it please people.
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