Rumor: Windows 8 & Windows Phone Code Will Be Combined
Microsoft may be merging Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" by using the MinWin stack.
There's speculation that Microsoft may be merging the code of Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" and Windows 8 next year. This rumor falls into the "One Modular OS To Rule Them All" theory that we've heard for some time, an idea that Microsoft's Windows 8 would ultimately encompass the PC, the tablet, the Xbox and the smartphone.
Recent speculation behind the code merge partially stems from an announcement made by CEO Steve Ballmer on Monday that Windows Phone division president Andy Lees would take the reigns of a "time-critical opportunity focused on driving maximum impact in 2012" with Windows Phone and Windows 8.
"We have tremendous potential with Windows Phone and Windows 8, and this move sets us up to really deliver against that potential," Ballmer said without adding any further details.
Terry Myerson, who worked with Lees on Windows Phone 7 and 7.5, will take over as head of Windows Phone, Ballmer said. Lees himself signed on with Microsoft back in 1990, and before that served as corporate vice-president of Microsoft's server and tools marketing and solutions group. He moved over to mobiles as part of the entertainment and devices group restructuring in 2010.
Hal Berenson, a former Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, believes the company is merely switching out the Windows Embedded Compact code of Windows Phone with parts of "MinWin," which is described as the "detangled core Windows kernel/file system/networking stack code." Microsoft supposedly wouldn't want to actually shove Windows 8 into a phone nor does it want to throw out all of the "Windows Phone OS" customized bits layered on top of the core, so the company is likely taking the MinWin route.
"[MinWin] is not a complete rewrite of the [Windows] kernel, but a reorganization of the APIs, so that components only call down the stack, and not up it," explains Microsoft's Mark Russinovich via the Windows Now blog, clarifying that it's not an actual kernel. "It is isolated in the build tree from the rest of Windows, so it can be innovated on by itself. It is fully bootable, 25-40 MB of disk space, and contains the executive systems, memory management, networking, and optional file system drivers. It’s fully testable, and Microsoft is working on a large suite of test cases to run against it. And it *is* indeed in Windows 7."
Previous reports indicated that Windows Phone 8 "Apollo" would arrive by mid-2012, but Microsoft later dismissed those claims. The software will likely launch alongside the general public release of Windows 8 or sometime thereafter. However it's believed that the use of MinWin will not only help accelerate the mobile OS release, but deliver cross platform coding simplicity and a significant boost in functionality. Software engineering costs would also be reduced because the desktop and mobile teams will be working on a common Windows stack code.
We expect to hear more about the possible merging of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 in just a matter of weeks at CES 2012.

Don't worry: the Sidekick is already dead.
Same basic thing as iOS 5 / OSX Lion and Android / Google Chrome. At least, as far as user experience is concerned within the apps.
It seems like everyone and their mother would love to have an SSD but does not want to pay the high premiums in order to get it. 16-32 GB SSD drives are cheap, but can't hold my Windows installation and programs at the same time. Why can't I choose within Windows which drive is my storage and which drive is my boot drive?
Windows already automatically recognizes which files I use the most within the indexing service. Why not take it one step further and automatically manage those files by migrating them to my SSD? Only the files that are needed, and nothing else. It would be nothing more complicated than an address translation at the hard drive level.
This way even my mother could see the substantial performance boost without the complications of having to teach her how to judge which files should be place on certain drives. They could even modify their absolutely retarded idea of ReadyBoost(the initial idea of having a thumb drive store an extra page file). Instead it would be a more substantial feature within Windows that would actually be used.
(In other words, code base commonality and communications integration always has a downside.)
Desktop computers aren't going to be replaced by tablets; they'll be replaced by a server that drives everything over WiFi from a closet, as normal as having a refrigerator or washer and dryer.
My idea would be to launch Windows Phone when the device is by itself, but when docked with a laptop extension or something Windows 8 boots up.
If Microsoft is reading this, you better pay me.. lol
Good article describing how it works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin
What this article is saying is that Windows 8 phone will have the same basic kernel architecture as vanilla windows 8. It won't be the same OS but because their core kernel components will be the same software should easily port between the two. Software also won't auto-magically work, it will still need to be compiled for each architecture and often special design tweaks will be needed, but it won't need to be rewrote. This also paves the way for a future dual binary option, although that may not be optimal as space is limited on a mobile device.
It also highlights how Windows has gone from a single monolithic kernel OS design to a modular design over the past decade.