Rumor: Windows 8 & Windows Phone Code Will Be Combined

Hmm my only fear is that such a code albeit being good at it, will not excel in any of the mentioned applications... and that is windows 7 strong point.

not a bad idea

Why is that robot from Lost in Space, going Danger, Danger in my head?

25-40MB reminds me of TinyXP. I can't wait to see what Microsoft does with this! An android rom can be between 80-200MB when fully featured. I doubt MinWin in its current state includes any sort of display drivers or interface (outside of command line/telnet), but if it's lean, mean, fast, and compiled for ARM, then I see a lot of developer base and enthusiasts that will love to take it apart and see how it works.

Don't worry: the Sidekick is already dead.

Now if I could plug a phone line into my old laptop with Windows 8 installed, and use it to dial, answer, and talk on the phone through my headset, that would be nice. No more desktop phone required. Add in caller-id and dialing from address book entries, and who would want to use a desk phone ever again?

I thought everyone knew this. In order to accelerate the growth of the Windows Phone (and Windows desktop) App stores, it only makes sense to allow developers to write their code (mostly) once and target phones, tablets, and "PCs". Especially since they are all just personal computers anyway...

Same basic thing as iOS 5 / OSX Lion and Android / Google Chrome. At least, as far as user experience is concerned within the apps.

So Microsoft is going to make a Windows 8 ecosystem for PC/Phone....and possibly a Tablet?

...and the Xbox 360/720

Why can't Windows 8 perform automatic SSD caching? With all the hype within the SSD market Windows should be nurturing this form of media just as much as it is trying to in the tablet sector.

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.

Finally, cross-platform malware without the Java overhead. Black hats rejoice!

(In other words, code base commonality and communications integration always has a downside.)

This could be ok as long as I do not have to use the mouse like my finger(I don't want to have to do "finger swipes" with my mouse. I want a single click action.)

ok now *this* is a very good move, a very late, very good move.

Combining the interfaces will make it easier to produce a multi-user operating system in the future that allows multiple concurrent sessions.

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.

Seems to me alot of companies are merging their product lines. Intel is merging Core / Atom product lines too which should be good for getting more performance out of Atom and better power management out of Core.

Well.. It would be more interesting if they did what some smartphones do but with Windows.
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

Was there ever any doubt? You have a product that runs on phone hardware, and you want to make your other product run on phone hardware. Seems pretty obvious.

Hye, I came up with the "one os to rule them all" slogan. Tom you need to freaking pay me for that I've been using it for 2 years now, singing the virtues of windows 8.

I said it before I'll say it again windows 8 is about to dig in that apple axx! Once you can run real windows apps on your phone, because, #1 hardware is powerful enough #2 one OS it's over for apple and android and their toy OS, people want to do real work on their phone now especially on the productivity end , it's not so much about the phone market but the tablet my friend, the tablet.

I am a windows fan. But I think it is going to be a huge security issue if win 8 codebase is merged with winmo 7.5 or Apollo code base! This is a boon for virus writers! Write a single virus for windows and infect tablet, pc, phone and media device (xbox)...!

Ok some information on what "minwin" is. It's not an operating system and it's not new. It's been around since Vista, and isn't an actual kernel nor OS. Minwin is the name given to the subsection of Windows NT 6 (Vista/7/Server 2008/ Server 2008R2) that is absolutely necessary to run the OS, everything is optional. It has no GUI and runs on a command line, is stripped of all unnecessary drivers and features. It's the basic NT 6 kernel along with a CLI and whatever kernel drivers are required, that's it. It's not available to the public as a product, instead it's used by MS as a set of rules and practices to modularize their OS and give it better efficiency.

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.

A good idea, as long as the code size is kept in check. Remember Microsoft, most phones only have single-digit GB worth of storage.

As much as I love Windows, I cannot stop thinking that if they combine the code, it could also mean that I am going to need an antivirus on my phone. I hope that if they do this they come out with something clever, that way an antivirus solution will be recommended but not necessary.

Thanks,

@mhweb:
Do you honestly think that you will be able to get away with not having AV software on a phone for much longer? Doesn't matter if the O/S is Windows, iOS, android, or symbian. The one with the largest market share will be targeted first, and things will progress from there. Already, android apps are rife with malware, and iPhone apps are susceptible too as white-hat investigators have shown.

This would be allso good thing to corporates, because they could rely on "same" os in different platforms.
So desktops, laptops, tablets and phones would all use same protocolls. It would make it much easier for corporate technical servise to maintain the whole system. Much like Aple can allready do!

Well it's not MS's call but the software programmers. Dual binary works by compiling the code twice, once for each target architecture then putting both compiled binary's into the same file. RISC binary's tend to be bigger then x86 but not by much. In essence instead of a 1.5MB executable file for each platform you get a single 3.0MB executable file that works on both platforms. The data files should remain the same size though.

It is a great idea . The ONLY reason for many users (me for sure) to buy Windows-based phone would be to have "standard" Windows functionality on the phone. There are no lame excuses about hardware any more, new phones are MUCH more powerful than Pentium III laptops that were running Windows XP and all related apps just fine. Anti-virus excuse is also just petty, and trying to make PCs work like phone would be just ridiculous. The only way to progress in the mobile area for Microsoft, which would be also making many Windows user very happy is to unlock full Windows features on the phones. Really support Microsoft in making the right decision.