Thousands of references to MinWin are in Windows 8

According to a new report, there are as many as 6,000 references to MinWin in an internal Windows 8 client build. This may provide more clues and validation of Microsoft’s virtualization plans for the coming operating system release.

As the clock ticks down toward the Microsoft Build conference, discoveries about what’s inside Windows 8 are continuing to trickle out. The latest — from ITworld’s Sandro Villinger — has to do with MinWin.

Villinger found that there are between 5,000 and 6,000 references to MinWin in a Milestone 2 build of Windows 8 that he examined. He speculated in an August 3 article that MinWin may figure prominently in Microsoft’s virtualization plans with Windows 8.

MinWin, for those needing a refresher, the “guts” of Windows (the kernel, hardware abstraction layer, TCP/IP, file systems, drivers and other core system services). Microsoft included an implementation of MinWin as part of Windows 7, officials acknowledged. But it sounds like MinWin will be more prominent in Windows 8.

Source: All About Microsoft