Windows 8 Should Virtualize Everything

The next Microsoft Windows operating system should put everything—and I mean everything—in a sandbox.

There was a time when I disagreed with the idea that the core of Microsoft’s next major operating system, Windows 8, would be a hypervisor, or virtualized machine monitor. Now, however, I see the beauty of this approach, especially for consumers.

An operating system that runs everything as a virtualized machine could be one of the most significant and beneficial steps Microsoft has ever taken in the continuing development of the Windows platform. Plus, there is evidence, going all the way back to the early days of Windows 7, that this is the exact direction Microsoft has been going in all along.

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When I met with Windows executives at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in October 2008, they told us about the newly componentized nature of the operating system. For Windows 7, this meant a peeling away of many things that had been intrinsic to the OS. So, all of the apps that used to come with it—the movie and DVD creation tools, messaging, and even e-mail—would now be optional. Even before Microsoft took a hatchet to Windows 7, the company had to figure out how to disentangle Internet Explorer from the operating system’s core. Now, at least in the European Union, you can choose to have other browsers pre-installed on your desktop.

While these are mostly minor changes that do not get to the true core of the OS, they do, in their small way, help clear the path for Windows 8 to become the first fully virtualized Windows. I also have a theory that Microsoft has been working to reduce the size of the core OS dramatically (though the company has gone on record, saying it hates to talk about the kernel) and, even as it adds features and functionality to the interface, make it smaller, too. If you look at what’s possible on 1MB Web pages, you can see that everything Microsoft is doing on Windows 7 is little more than calls to the core OS with some lightweight graphics work on the front end. Even flashier features, like see-through panes, are really off-loaded to powerful graphics CPUs.

My point is that Windows 8 can, essentially, be a lightweight core (or kernel) and even a lighter-weight interface. Everything else can be a virtual machine. Here are the benefits.

If every single thing that runs on top of the operating system is a virtual machine, then applications, drivers, files, Web browsers, and the pages you view can all run in sandboxes, protected from each other and incapable of harming the OS. It’s easy to shut down virtual machines, and in Windows 8, I could imagine that technical functions, such as launching and closing virtual machines and even accessing system hard drives and peripherals outside the virtual machines, could be user friendly. In other words, consumers would have no idea that they’re running a series of virtual machines. They’d see a “What’s running” window, with a bunch of buttons next to each item that lets them pause, stop, or turn off the app, browser, etc.. They could still do it the old-fashioned way by selecting “Close” or “Exit” from a drop-down menu, but so many people are familiar with Windows Task Manager that they might appreciate this level of control.

Hardware control and mounting drives across virtual machines can be tough, but I think Microsoft can get this worked out by launch time. One option would be to offer a new hardware control panel or “Sharing Center.” This consumer-friendly interface would give consumers the option of sharing or shielding hardware and drives across all virtualized machines. Most of the time, you’ll want full, cross-machine access. Sometimes you won’t. Maybe, for example, Dad doesn’t want junior to access the NAS and possibly mess up the photo and video archives. In this new control panel, he could give Junior access to certain drives only when he uses certain apps (runs certain virtual machines). To Dad, this will appear like basic user-level control settings, but to the OS, it’ll be a complex system of levers for virtualized access and user control.

Another obvious benefit of an all-virtualized OS is security. If you’re browsing the Web and malware tries to attack or overtly suggest you install it to protect yourself, that nastyware simply won’t get further than the browser sandbox. This new kind of OS could kill the security software industry.

The biggest and, perhaps, most significant benefit, though, is that the Registry dies. Windows would no longer keep track of every app, device, call, and DLL. The OS will be done carrying the applications’ water. Virtualized apps and hardware will only be allowed to store local XML files that tell them something about the base hardware and where to find locally-stored files. Device drivers already get their Device Stage information from just such an XML-like file. I see no reason why this couldn’t work for everything else.

I know some people will say that there’s little reason to wait for Microsoft to build this mythical virtualized OS—not when Google Chrome for the desktop is right around the corner. Chrome will be very light and rely heavily on cloud-based apps to get stuff done. From a security standpoint, it’ll already have a leg up on Windows 7. However, huge questions remain regarding power, usability, and always-on access to critical documents and files. Most consumers will, I’d venture, still look to Microsoft and Windows for their next OS. However, if Microsoft doesn’t do something radical like what I’ve proposed, there will be fewer and fewer people who will walk that well-worn path.

Virtualization is already a great tool for businesses, but the smart money is on making an operating system that sees the world in tightly-controlled sandboxes. This is how Microsoft will pave a new road for Windows users in this still young 21st century.

Windows 1.0: Happy Birthday

Here’s a walk down memory lane with Windows 1.0 and me.

Windows 7
Windows version 1.0, which did not set the world on fire, is now 25 years old this month, and I’d like to share a few remembrances of the OS.

First of all, it was useless. Like, seriously useless. But it was strangely interesting at the same time. You had to have a special graphics card to run the thing, and when compared to DOS, it did look better although it was not as attractive as the Mac OS or anything done today including Linux GUI’s. I wonder if there is a machine in existence that still runs it.

Steve Ballmer made a hilarious video promoting Windows 1.0 like a used car salesman.

When it shipped in 1985, the product had its sights not on the Mac, but OS/2 which Microsoft was co-developing. The company finally decided that the success of OS/2 was not in the best interests of Microsoft, so it did this parallel development. But originally, in 1983, when the product was first announced, it was a panicky reaction to the 1982 Comdex announcement of VisiOn by VisiCorp which was a similar shell idea.


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At first, Microsoft called it “Interface Manager.” Later, a marketing guy in the company came up with the name “Windows.” The thing wasn’t originally designed as an OS but as a shell program with a zippy GUI that could manage all of the device drivers through a common API. People forget that by the mid 1980’s device drivers for peripherals were a nightmare. Interface Manager, now Windows, would take care of this problem.

The product roll-out centered around a huge “celebrity” roast of the product at the 1985 Comdex. I was hired to be the roastmaster. The idea was that because the product was so late, humor needed to be injected. Like all roasts, the material was professionally written by a bank of comedy writers whom I gathered. The material consisted of typical “roast” jokes. Only one guy, the then CEO of Businessland (long since defunct), refused to use the professionally written material and decided to do his own presentation. He didn’t even try to be funny, and I suspect he didn’t actually know what a roast was. Everyone else played along, and it was quite humorous. I recall one of my lines: “When they began coding the product, Steve Ballmer still had hair.”

One curiosity from the event is that Microsoft wanted to have fog envelop the rollout and had about a dozen buckets of water into which they tossed dry ice. Curiously, the air is so dry in Las Vegas, where the event was held, that the water vapor dissipated instantly. It was quite funny, as everyone was baffled by the phenomenon.

The original product came with various small programs, such as a calendar, calculator, clock and notepad, plus a few games. These evolved into what are now the accessories.

A slew of interim versions of Windows products, many collectible (I think), were rolled out before the product began to get traction. It all led up to Windows 95, now 15 years old, which catapulted the OS into prominence. Microsoft played with the idea of chip-specific versions of Windows with Windows286 and Windows386. At one point, the company talked a big game about making the software portable and had versions running on the PowerPC chip and other non-Intel platforms. This direction was eventually scrubbed. Through all these changes, it has developed into the Windows we know today.

Happy Birthday Windows!

Microsoft Beefs Up Hotmail Security

Microsoft is beefing up security for Hotmail in order to curtail hijacking and phishing scams on legitimate accounts.

“These updates will help you protect your password and, in the unlikely event that a hijacker gains access to your account, provide a more secure recovery path so you will always be able to get your account back and kick the hijackers out,” John Scarrow, Microsoft’s general manager of safety services, wrote in a blog post.

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In addition to pre-existing security measures, Hotmail is adding a couple of password proofs to keep accounts from being infiltrated. Scarrow compared proofs to a set of spare keys when you’ve been locked out of your house.

Previously, users locked out of their accounts were asked to provide an alternate e-mail address or answer a personal question to prove their identities. However, “only 25 percent of people with a secret question actually remembered their answer when needed,” Scarrow wrote.

As a result, Microsoft introduced two new Hotmail account recovery options: cell phone verification and a link to a “trusted PC.” With the phone option, Microsoft will send a single-use password via text message that you can use to activate your account. With “trusted PC,” meanwhile, you can link your account to two or more personal computers.

“Then, if you ever need to regain control of your account by resetting your password, you simply need to be using your computer and we will know you are the legitimate owner,” Scarrow wrote.

As an added layer of security, making changes to your Hotmail account – like adding your cell phone number or a trusted PC – would require you to access an existing proof, like that second e-mail address. “This means that even if a hijacker steals your password, they can’t lock you out of your account or create backdoors for themselves,” Scarrow said.

Microsoft also pledged to monitor the reputations of IP addresses in order to more readily pick up on potential threats.

Microsoft rolled out an updated version of Hotmail for its 360 million users this year, finishing up earlier this month. It also incorporated Facebook chat and a partnership with professional networking site LinkedIn, and allowed for users to post updates simultaneously to all their connected networks. It also added Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for e-mail, contacts, and calendar to the iPhone.

The Absolute Best Google Sniper 2.0 Bonus

If you are probing a Google Sniper 2.0 Bonus then this is going to be the most important bulletin you ever read. Why exactly do I say that? Simply because I am going to announce some meaningful facts that you don’t want to miss at no possible cost.

Before I get to the fact, let me give you the absolute rationalization for this article.

What really happens in the internet marketing association is that a lot of gurus or experienced marketers tend to release courses that they believe will help others to make money online. Almost every week a new course is released. So you can imagine that most of these programs are either rehashed crap which are filled with rehashed stuff from previous courses. I know this may sound a bit harsh but it’s the truth.


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However, all hope is not lost because every story has two sides. So although there are a lot of crappy new products hitting the market place, once is a while new courses are also distributed that are of very high quality and can really help in taking your business to the next level.

Google Sniper was one such course. This course is a complete blueprint internet marketing course that was launched by George Brown who developed an amazing method for getting top search engine rankings for websites with relatively few backlinks which resulted in a ton of sales in all different kinds of niches. This way was fully laid out in his course. After the course was launched, it instantly became a top seller in the clickbank marketplace and it had a positive impact on a lot of person lives. If you visit most of the online forums, you’ll see that a lot of regular folks achieved great success by following George’s Sniping method.

Google Sniper 2.0 Set to be released on February 14th 2011!
Now you should see why I create this google sniper 2.0 bonus website! I am about to give you all the details below:

When every internet marketing course is released, there are also a ton of affiliates who want to make some cash from the launches. And that’s for good reason…. Absolutely nothing is wrong with doing that! So these affiliates will create some incentives or bonuses so that prospective buyers can buy the product through their affiliate link so they make a commission.

Google Sniper 2.0 – What Exactly Is It?
Some of you reading this may have some idea about what exactly is google sniper 2.0 however, for those of you who have no idea, here’s a brief overview of what the course is:

The original version of the google sniper course is about affiliate marketing. The method or technique was about ranking small niche websites in to search engine positions using only a few or sometimes no backlinks at all. These sniper sites will rank for keywords that gets a lot of searches per month and so they go on to make several hundred dollars monthly. Now the true success would be creating tons of these little sniper sites that makes several hundreds per month and then the number ads up.

What’s Different With Google Sniper 2.0?
Since the release of version one, lots of things have changed. As you may or may not know, concepts on the internet are ever changing thus techniques that use to work incredibly well in the past may no longer work that efficient today. So George has found it fit to update the course with new found material.

* Brand new, revised and in many cases totally transformed for 2011
* Step by step videos updated and re filmed for the new version
* Shocking new keyword research method to find some super nice niches
* Never before released case studies with lots of success stories and much more

So let Us Get back To The Google Sniper 2.0 Bonus
Why should you consider a Google Sniper 2.0 bonus? The simple answer would be because you will get much more value for your money. That is of course depending of which bonus offer you go with. I mentioned earlier that there will be numerous affiliates on board preparing bonus packages for the Google Sniper 2.0 launch. That in itself is a technique to make more sales. You offer an irresistible incentive to get people to buy from you. That means instead of you going directly to the product owners site to but the product, you can buy from an affiliate and get a valuable bonus pack to go with it.