5 ms·

Windows 10 Technical Preview Source Tree

38 points by cremno 12y ago

devsno 12y ago
Looks like this is old: build 9364. Also a lot files representing recent functionality are missing.
- aionescu 12y ago
  The build number comes from the build server, and isn't accurate I believe. Some pretty recent functionality is in the file list, including mobilecore, mincore, and other "One Windows" refactorings from Windows 10.
sargun 12y ago
Can someone explain what this is exactly to me? Is it just the source tree / directory listing? It doesn't appear I can click through and view the code of any of these files, or am I mistaken?
- mischanix 12y ago
  Yeah, it's just a list of files, no file data. It's also implemented in a CSS-only manner that lags horribly in Firefox. The filenames themselves look legitimate, though.
  - TillE 12y ago
    Possibly extracted from debug symbols? That would be my guess. It takes a while to load even in Chrome.
    - mischanix 12y ago
      The only files that show up in PDBs are source files for the resulting objects (e.g., .c); there are .exp and other files in that tree.
      - aionescu 12y ago
        Actually, static and dynamic libs also show up, as do resource files. So I guessed that .obj is .c (not always accurate), .res is .rc, and dynamic .lib is .exp, and so on and so forth.
geonik 12y ago
What a mess! And, frankly, I don't care unless I can read the source code
drey08 12y ago
It's kind of odd that it would be just one source tree. Surely it can't be one giant Visual Studio project.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Of course it's not going to be one VS project However it's not weird to be one source tree (There might be some things off-tree like some tools) It's certainly debatable and there are advantages and disadvantages either way
  - DominikD 12y ago
    Windows doesn't use VS projects. Build system is (well, was when I worked on it) custom and utilized compiler drops from developer division[1]. If you take a look at the Microsoft WDK, you'll get an idea of how the build system works, with "sources" and "dirs" files sprinkled around. VS projects wouldn't work great for yet another reason: pretty much nobody in Windows uses VS. People come from different backgrounds and already have preferences. So vim, Emacs, SourceInsight, SlickEdit and others are much more popular than VS. Top level directories represent depots (think: repositories) of the SourceDepot version control system (home grown Perforce fork). Directory levels also tend to represent branches, so e.g. WINMAIN has branches for most depots (e.g. FBL_minio, FBL_minkernel, etc.) with additional subbranches following this pattern (e.g. FBL_minkernel_devices). I liked Windows build system a lot. It's pretty neat how it works, what you can do with it, how you can build whole system or just parts of it, etc. It's not that simple to get build system of this size right, but I think MS actually nailed it. [1] It has to be like that, otherwise it'd be impossible to support new platforms, like - say - ARM before WinRT was announced.
    - mdaniel 12y ago
      > pretty much nobody in Windows uses VS Between your comment about the dog-fooding of compiler drops, and the raving reviews of VS that I've heard (no first-hand experience, mind you), that surprises me. If nothing else, I would think that having everyone on VS while editing something like the Windows source code would surface VS bugs that one might not encounter in other situations. That said, I do have a deep appreciation for the pushback against a corporate editor mandate.
hosay123 12y ago
I'll bet $3 these were maybe extracted from Microsoft Symbol Server. Note it's not a MSFT site, it's some training firm.
- toyg 12y ago
  Looks like it's owned by a ReactOS developer with quite a bit of experience in digging into Windows low-level internals: http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?page_id=2 http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?page_id=2
  - wila 12y ago
    Alex Ionescu works for Microsoft ^H^H^H^H^H edit: actually my memory might be wrong, seems he was only there for an internship. Here's his linked in. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aionescu https://www.linkedin.com/in/aionescu This is not a file dump, but a file directory listing where he reproduces something Mark Russinovich did a while ago. See also his tweet here: https://twitter.com/aionescu/status/547322576947523586 https://twitter.com/aionescu/status/547322576947523586 quote: I've built an entire mapping of the Windows 10 Source Tree, similar to what @markrussinovich did back in the days
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - aionescu 12y ago
      I never worked or interned at Microsoft :)
chj 12y ago
Odd that all sources are c files. No cpp?
- DominikD 12y ago
  This doesn't look entirely accurate. My guess is that extensions were guessed when parsing symbols (which seem to be the source of this data). I'd bet that all of the things in minwin/kernel/io are pure C with upper layers being half-in-half C and C++ (most COM stuff has to be OO).
  - thibauts 12y ago
    AFAIR Windows is full-C and COM doesn't rely on C++ object semantics.
    - DominikD 12y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean by "C++ object semantics" but COM objects are just objects, that I'm positive. My code was in .cpp file, not .c - that I'm sure of as well. This is why I'm saying that extensions seem to be guesses - PDBs carry module names w/o extensions.
      - asveikau 12y ago
        Nothing stops you from following the COM ABI from C or any other language, which is kind of the point. The .h files generated from the idl have that CINTERFACE macro which has the vtable structs, in a form convenient for consuming from a C (and not C++) program.
        DominikD 12y ago
        Sure it's doable. I wrote some DirectX apps in pure C back in the days. Heck, I wrote one in ASM. But it's art for art's sake. There's no point in complicating your life like that, especially not when you're working on a commercial project.
    - deleted 12y ago
rikacomet 12y ago
MS, why you no break that iso file in part files? In Asia, people are still running on barely Broadband speeds (1MB or below). So much for having a Indian CEO.
bkmn 12y ago
As others have said this is probably just a test/erronous/etc, but it's pretty funny there's a "darwin/" directory in there. I'm betting Windows 10 will be free (as in beer) - there's not much else MSFT can do to keep Windows competitive. But it's an interesting thought experiment to think they would add a darwin compatibility layer in Win 10...
- mikepurvis 12y ago
  Free as in beer would make Windows so much more competitive as a development and deployment environment— being able to pull a base image off Vagrantcloud alone would be a big difference for many, I suspect. I bet there would be a spike of interest in packaging stuff for cygwin, too.
  - devcpp 12y ago
    Free for educational and personal use only. I doubt your use would include that. Free for business would kill Microsoft, as much as they bet on their hardware locked in devices these days. They're not Apple just yet.
    - dagw 12y ago
      How much money does Windows make from OS licenses vs licenses from SQLServer/Office/Exchange/Sharepoint etc. etc. It's not impossible that a free OS would lead to selling more SQLServer and Office licenses and making up some of the difference there.
      - toyg 12y ago
        Office is the real cash cow, what users really want. Everything else can be emulated away, but no accountant will ever work without MSExcel, no lawyer will work without MSWord, and Outlook is still the best integrated mail/calendar tool. Exchange and SQLServer are profitable, but they don't provide the same amount of lock-in and revenue that Office does. However, this won't continue forever, especially with the move to mobile. I'd argue that giving away Windows Server would be a good move to try and secure the Office monopoly beyond the next five years.

38 points by cremno 12y ago

devsno 12y ago

Looks like this is old: build 9364. Also a lot files representing recent functionality are missing.

aionescu 12y ago
The build number comes from the build server, and isn't accurate I believe. Some pretty recent functionality is in the file list, including mobilecore, mincore, and other "One Windows" refactorings from Windows 10.

sargun 12y ago

Can someone explain what this is exactly to me? Is it just the source tree / directory listing? It doesn't appear I can click through and view the code of any of these files, or am I mistaken?

mischanix 12y ago
Yeah, it's just a list of files, no file data. It's also implemented in a CSS-only manner that lags horribly in Firefox. The filenames themselves look legitimate, though.
- TillE 12y ago
  Possibly extracted from debug symbols? That would be my guess. It takes a while to load even in Chrome.
  - mischanix 12y ago
    The only files that show up in PDBs are source files for the resulting objects (e.g., .c); there are .exp and other files in that tree.
    - aionescu 12y ago
      Actually, static and dynamic libs also show up, as do resource files. So I guessed that .obj is .c (not always accurate), .res is .rc, and dynamic .lib is .exp, and so on and so forth.

geonik 12y ago

What a mess! And, frankly, I don't care unless I can read the source code

drey08 12y ago

It's kind of odd that it would be just one source tree. Surely it can't be one giant Visual Studio project.

raverbashing 12y ago
Of course it's not going to be one VS project However it's not weird to be one source tree (There might be some things off-tree like some tools) It's certainly debatable and there are advantages and disadvantages either way
- DominikD 12y ago
  Windows doesn't use VS projects. Build system is (well, was when I worked on it) custom and utilized compiler drops from developer division[1]. If you take a look at the Microsoft WDK, you'll get an idea of how the build system works, with "sources" and "dirs" files sprinkled around. VS projects wouldn't work great for yet another reason: pretty much nobody in Windows uses VS. People come from different backgrounds and already have preferences. So vim, Emacs, SourceInsight, SlickEdit and others are much more popular than VS. Top level directories represent depots (think: repositories) of the SourceDepot version control system (home grown Perforce fork). Directory levels also tend to represent branches, so e.g. WINMAIN has branches for most depots (e.g. FBL_minio, FBL_minkernel, etc.) with additional subbranches following this pattern (e.g. FBL_minkernel_devices). I liked Windows build system a lot. It's pretty neat how it works, what you can do with it, how you can build whole system or just parts of it, etc. It's not that simple to get build system of this size right, but I think MS actually nailed it. [1] It has to be like that, otherwise it'd be impossible to support new platforms, like - say - ARM before WinRT was announced.
  - mdaniel 12y ago
    > pretty much nobody in Windows uses VS Between your comment about the dog-fooding of compiler drops, and the raving reviews of VS that I've heard (no first-hand experience, mind you), that surprises me. If nothing else, I would think that having everyone on VS while editing something like the Windows source code would surface VS bugs that one might not encounter in other situations. That said, I do have a deep appreciation for the pushback against a corporate editor mandate.

hosay123 12y ago

I'll bet $3 these were maybe extracted from Microsoft Symbol Server. Note it's not a MSFT site, it's some training firm.

toyg 12y ago
Looks like it's owned by a ReactOS developer with quite a bit of experience in digging into Windows low-level internals: http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?page_id=2 http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?page_id=2
- wila 12y ago
  Alex Ionescu works for Microsoft ^H^H^H^H^H edit: actually my memory might be wrong, seems he was only there for an internship. Here's his linked in. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aionescu https://www.linkedin.com/in/aionescu This is not a file dump, but a file directory listing where he reproduces something Mark Russinovich did a while ago. See also his tweet here: https://twitter.com/aionescu/status/547322576947523586 https://twitter.com/aionescu/status/547322576947523586 quote: I've built an entire mapping of the Windows 10 Source Tree, similar to what @markrussinovich did back in the days
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - aionescu 12y ago
    I never worked or interned at Microsoft :)

chj 12y ago

Odd that all sources are c files. No cpp?

DominikD 12y ago
This doesn't look entirely accurate. My guess is that extensions were guessed when parsing symbols (which seem to be the source of this data). I'd bet that all of the things in minwin/kernel/io are pure C with upper layers being half-in-half C and C++ (most COM stuff has to be OO).
- thibauts 12y ago
  AFAIR Windows is full-C and COM doesn't rely on C++ object semantics.
  - DominikD 12y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "C++ object semantics" but COM objects are just objects, that I'm positive. My code was in .cpp file, not .c - that I'm sure of as well. This is why I'm saying that extensions seem to be guesses - PDBs carry module names w/o extensions.
    - asveikau 12y ago
      Nothing stops you from following the COM ABI from C or any other language, which is kind of the point. The .h files generated from the idl have that CINTERFACE macro which has the vtable structs, in a form convenient for consuming from a C (and not C++) program.
      - DominikD 12y ago
        Sure it's doable. I wrote some DirectX apps in pure C back in the days. Heck, I wrote one in ASM. But it's art for art's sake. There's no point in complicating your life like that, especially not when you're working on a commercial project.
  - deleted 12y ago

rikacomet 12y ago

MS, why you no break that iso file in part files? In Asia, people are still running on barely Broadband speeds (1MB or below). So much for having a Indian CEO.

bkmn 12y ago

As others have said this is probably just a test/erronous/etc, but it's pretty funny there's a "darwin/" directory in there. I'm betting Windows 10 will be free (as in beer) - there's not much else MSFT can do to keep Windows competitive. But it's an interesting thought experiment to think they would add a darwin compatibility layer in Win 10...

mikepurvis 12y ago
Free as in beer would make Windows so much more competitive as a development and deployment environment— being able to pull a base image off Vagrantcloud alone would be a big difference for many, I suspect. I bet there would be a spike of interest in packaging stuff for cygwin, too.
- devcpp 12y ago
  Free for educational and personal use only. I doubt your use would include that. Free for business would kill Microsoft, as much as they bet on their hardware locked in devices these days. They're not Apple just yet.
  - dagw 12y ago
    How much money does Windows make from OS licenses vs licenses from SQLServer/Office/Exchange/Sharepoint etc. etc. It's not impossible that a free OS would lead to selling more SQLServer and Office licenses and making up some of the difference there.
    - toyg 12y ago
      Office is the real cash cow, what users really want. Everything else can be emulated away, but no accountant will ever work without MSExcel, no lawyer will work without MSWord, and Outlook is still the best integrated mail/calendar tool. Exchange and SQLServer are profitable, but they don't provide the same amount of lock-in and revenue that Office does. However, this won't continue forever, especially with the move to mobile. I'd argue that giving away Windows Server would be a good move to try and secure the Office monopoly beyond the next five years.