4 ms·

Don't modern versions of Windows do the same? For example, I clearly remember that the Windows 10 installer first launches a Windows 7-like environment.

heraldgeezer 2y ago
Yes that is Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/winpe-intro?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Enviro...
zokier 2y ago
Aren't all modern (>xp) windowses just NT6 under the hood? Is there such clear delineation between 7 and 10 for example?
- rbanffy 2y ago
  It feels like NT4, with 2000 on top of it, then a layer of XP, then Vista, then 7, then 8, then 10, and, finally, 11. It’s not uncommon to do something that lands me on a dialog box I still remember from Windows NT 3.1. The upside is that they take backwards compatibility very seriously, probably only second to IBM.
  - WeylandYutani 2y ago
    Yes it may not be the prettiest but I can get 20 year old games to run with relatively little troubleshooting.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      You can still run 50 year old games on your newest IBM Z16 mainframe. Microsoft is just a baby in this business. If you have a Unisys Clearpath boxes, you can even get get some 60 year old games running, provided you can read the punchcards ;-)
      - bitwize 2y ago
        Fun fact: Unisys Clearpath today is just x86 boxen emulating the old Burroughs CPU architecture. You can even deploy Clearpath instances to AWS. And they still run Mr. High and Mighty Master Control, too.
        rbanffy 2y ago
        MCP is the most user hostile OS I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. And don’t even start me about CANDE.
        bitwize 2y ago
        To answer your other comment: yes, the MCP from Tron was named after the Burroughs/Unisys OS. Bonnie MacBird, the screenwriter for Tron, is the wife of Alan Kay, who served as technical consultant, and she dropped references both to himself (Alan Bradley) and his areas of interest (Kay loved the Burroughs architecture and in particular its tagged-memory features) in the script for the movie. Interesting to learn the real MCP was nearly as hostile as its fictional namesake.
  - conception 2y ago
    Like the services control panel that’s still 30% white space, a useless “extended” tab and doesn’t save any of the location or style data. It’s the best.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      I also really enjoy there seems to be a lot of things that run on top of a mutant version of MMC. IIRC, that’s also from the NT4 days.
  - rjh29 2y ago
    IIRC there is only a single Windows 3.1 dialog box in Windows 11 (ODBC Microsoft Access Setup -> Select Resource file chooser). Lucky you.
    - reddalo 2y ago
      Windows 10 also had a Windows 3.1 dialog in the Fonts folder (when you try to add a new font), but they fixed it in Windows 11.
- feldrim 2y ago
  It continued as 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. But the NT kernel revamped for Windows 10. And they aligned the version numbers at that point. Windows 10 and 11 are both NT 10. The kernel has many differences within 6.x let alone the big leap to 10.
  - nntwozz 2y ago
    Just like macOS was Mac OS X (10) for a very long time, then they moved to 11 with Big Sur but it's really only in name. macOS Sequoia is version 15, whoever reaches 20 first wins right!?
    - cozzyd 2y ago
      Joke's on them, I'm running Fedora
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  They're all NT, though I'm not sure how you mean "NT6"; XP was NT 5, Windows 10 was NT 10, and I think 11 is 11.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    NT 6.3 was Windows 8.1, apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_vers...
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      Incidentally, this is why most drivers broadly support 2000/XP (NT5), Vista/7/8/8.1 (NT6), and 10/11 (NT10) in those specific groups.
  - my123 2y ago
    Windows 11 is still NT 10.0
- runjake 2y ago
  There have been iterative substantial improvements to the NT architecture since Windows 2000 and later with Vista (where the UAC model started, rather poorly).
  - af3d 2y ago
    Really? Windows2000 (which was based on NT) hit the sweet spot for me. Anything earlier than that seemed too buggy, and from there onward just seemed to devolve into a bloated mess of unrequested "features". (The very reason why I have been using Linux for 20+ years now as a matter of fact.) But yeah to be completely fair I suppose not everything they have produced since has been crap. There have been some innovations here and there...
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Linux has enough unrequested features as well, and the distributions are a fragmentation mess. 20 years ago, we thought eventually either GNOME or KDE would win, instead became even more fragmented, across all layers.
Kwpolska 2y ago
The installer runs in Windows PE (a stripped-down, live version of Windows). It looks like Windows Vista, because Microsoft never bothered to update the bitmaps making up the fake theme.
- MortyWaves 2y ago
  I thought I read somewhere recently that they finally updated the installer
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Remember very few people install windows in the modern world - most systems ship with windows, and then are only repaired or upgraded. That is presumably why Microsoft doesn't put much engineering effort into the install-from-empty-disk case.
chungy 2y ago
All versions of Windows NT setup run in the same kernel that the installed OS is in. Pre-Vista versions would stick to a basic text buffer that was a lowest common denominator. Windows Vista and newer launch a more substantial version of the OS with the graphics system and Win32 services running, but they never intermix versions. Windows 10's DVD loads Windows 10 to run the installer. That they haven't updated the pre-baked Aero graphics since Vista is a laziness problem, not indicative of being "actually Vista/7" :)
- 71bw 2y ago
  >Windows Vista and newer launch a more substantial version of the OS with the graphics system and Win32 services running, but they never intermix versions. And yet, you can use the Windows 11 installer to install Windows 7 and have it be significantly faster because of that.
  - WorldMaker 2y ago
    That's as much just the mid-Windows 10 era shift from the Windows installer installing Windows "one file copy at time" to shipping virtual hard disk images and installing the whole thing like (but not exactly as) a container overlay.
  - chungy 2y ago
    Windows Vista introduced a wim-based method of installing where it effectively unpacks a whole prebaked installation image onto the hard disk. It is the X:\Sources\install.wim file on the install DVD. I'm not surprised that you can mix up versions by modifying your installation image, since the installation method hasn't changed since Vista. As Microsoft ships them, however, you boot Windows 11 to install Windows 11. :)

heraldgeezer 2y ago

Yes that is Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/winpe-intro?view=windows-11 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Preinstallation_Enviro...

zokier 2y ago

Aren't all modern (>xp) windowses just NT6 under the hood? Is there such clear delineation between 7 and 10 for example?

rbanffy 2y ago
It feels like NT4, with 2000 on top of it, then a layer of XP, then Vista, then 7, then 8, then 10, and, finally, 11. It’s not uncommon to do something that lands me on a dialog box I still remember from Windows NT 3.1. The upside is that they take backwards compatibility very seriously, probably only second to IBM.
- WeylandYutani 2y ago
  Yes it may not be the prettiest but I can get 20 year old games to run with relatively little troubleshooting.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    You can still run 50 year old games on your newest IBM Z16 mainframe. Microsoft is just a baby in this business. If you have a Unisys Clearpath boxes, you can even get get some 60 year old games running, provided you can read the punchcards ;-)
    - bitwize 2y ago
      Fun fact: Unisys Clearpath today is just x86 boxen emulating the old Burroughs CPU architecture. You can even deploy Clearpath instances to AWS. And they still run Mr. High and Mighty Master Control, too.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        MCP is the most user hostile OS I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. And don’t even start me about CANDE.
        bitwize 2y ago
        To answer your other comment: yes, the MCP from Tron was named after the Burroughs/Unisys OS. Bonnie MacBird, the screenwriter for Tron, is the wife of Alan Kay, who served as technical consultant, and she dropped references both to himself (Alan Bradley) and his areas of interest (Kay loved the Burroughs architecture and in particular its tagged-memory features) in the script for the movie. Interesting to learn the real MCP was nearly as hostile as its fictional namesake.
- conception 2y ago
  Like the services control panel that’s still 30% white space, a useless “extended” tab and doesn’t save any of the location or style data. It’s the best.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    I also really enjoy there seems to be a lot of things that run on top of a mutant version of MMC. IIRC, that’s also from the NT4 days.
- rjh29 2y ago
  IIRC there is only a single Windows 3.1 dialog box in Windows 11 (ODBC Microsoft Access Setup -> Select Resource file chooser). Lucky you.
  - reddalo 2y ago
    Windows 10 also had a Windows 3.1 dialog in the Fonts folder (when you try to add a new font), but they fixed it in Windows 11.
feldrim 2y ago
It continued as 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. But the NT kernel revamped for Windows 10. And they aligned the version numbers at that point. Windows 10 and 11 are both NT 10. The kernel has many differences within 6.x let alone the big leap to 10.
- nntwozz 2y ago
  Just like macOS was Mac OS X (10) for a very long time, then they moved to 11 with Big Sur but it's really only in name. macOS Sequoia is version 15, whoever reaches 20 first wins right!?
  - cozzyd 2y ago
    Joke's on them, I'm running Fedora
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
They're all NT, though I'm not sure how you mean "NT6"; XP was NT 5, Windows 10 was NT 10, and I think 11 is 11.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  NT 6.3 was Windows 8.1, apparently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_vers...
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Incidentally, this is why most drivers broadly support 2000/XP (NT5), Vista/7/8/8.1 (NT6), and 10/11 (NT10) in those specific groups.
- my123 2y ago
  Windows 11 is still NT 10.0
runjake 2y ago
There have been iterative substantial improvements to the NT architecture since Windows 2000 and later with Vista (where the UAC model started, rather poorly).
- af3d 2y ago
  Really? Windows2000 (which was based on NT) hit the sweet spot for me. Anything earlier than that seemed too buggy, and from there onward just seemed to devolve into a bloated mess of unrequested "features". (The very reason why I have been using Linux for 20+ years now as a matter of fact.) But yeah to be completely fair I suppose not everything they have produced since has been crap. There have been some innovations here and there...
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Linux has enough unrequested features as well, and the distributions are a fragmentation mess. 20 years ago, we thought eventually either GNOME or KDE would win, instead became even more fragmented, across all layers.

Kwpolska 2y ago

The installer runs in Windows PE (a stripped-down, live version of Windows). It looks like Windows Vista, because Microsoft never bothered to update the bitmaps making up the fake theme.

MortyWaves 2y ago
I thought I read somewhere recently that they finally updated the installer
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Remember very few people install windows in the modern world - most systems ship with windows, and then are only repaired or upgraded. That is presumably why Microsoft doesn't put much engineering effort into the install-from-empty-disk case.

chungy 2y ago

All versions of Windows NT setup run in the same kernel that the installed OS is in. Pre-Vista versions would stick to a basic text buffer that was a lowest common denominator. Windows Vista and newer launch a more substantial version of the OS with the graphics system and Win32 services running, but they never intermix versions. Windows 10's DVD loads Windows 10 to run the installer. That they haven't updated the pre-baked Aero graphics since Vista is a laziness problem, not indicative of being "actually Vista/7" :)

71bw 2y ago
>Windows Vista and newer launch a more substantial version of the OS with the graphics system and Win32 services running, but they never intermix versions. And yet, you can use the Windows 11 installer to install Windows 7 and have it be significantly faster because of that.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  That's as much just the mid-Windows 10 era shift from the Windows installer installing Windows "one file copy at time" to shipping virtual hard disk images and installing the whole thing like (but not exactly as) a container overlay.
- chungy 2y ago
  Windows Vista introduced a wim-based method of installing where it effectively unpacks a whole prebaked installation image onto the hard disk. It is the X:\Sources\install.wim file on the install DVD. I'm not surprised that you can mix up versions by modifying your installation image, since the installation method hasn't changed since Vista. As Microsoft ships them, however, you boot Windows 11 to install Windows 11. :)