Re-Architecting Windows & Updates for customer statisfaction (everyone really)
I had a dream, That dream needs to be real.
The implications were big, for the better.
- Installing the update was quick.
- Restarting was Quick for updates.
- Rolling Back to a previous build/state? Instantanious and re-verseable! Instantious too, click, restart done.
How?
- Windows is a VHD
- Updates are VHDs
- Pre-installed Apps are in a VHD
- Newly installed Apps live in another VHD
- UWP Games live in seperate vhds invidually if they are above a certain size or always
- Everything "legacy" you install lives on it's own VHD
- User files lives in it's own VHD
- It's not virtualized, we are simply booting straight into the VHD and connect the other VHDs
How does this all look like in Explorer? Just like Windows, no .vhds for you to see.
Why you might want this?
- Literally everything just gets better
- Updates would likely be much faster
- Updating from one build to the next would definitly be faster
- Support for rolling back as well as forward, less prone to break things
- Registry bloat easier to counter
- Resetting Windows would only require a normal restart.
- A move over to a hypervisor that hosts windows etc in the future could be as simple as a update by Microsoft after this is done.
Sadly this will likely stay a dream, it's undoubtly a lot of work to get this maybe there is a better/faster way to fix some of the "old fashioned" ways of Windows inefficencies.
We can already native boot into VHD but i believe it's still semi-broken on W10 no idea if they fixed windows upgrades yet.
TL;DR Virtual Disks are awesome, please make them a integral part of the OS and prepare Windows for a world of virtualization on a consumer level outside of Xbox One.
If someone from MS wants to contact me feel free, not that I think anyone would.
Posted Jun 24, 2016, 8:33 PM UTC
Boot from VHD is pretty good, I do use it, the only thing it cannot do is upgrading Windows builds, so I have to wake it up in Hyper-V, upgrade it, then it works great again as VHD boot.
I really like your idea, looks like you really thought it through, but I think it is a little overcomplicated. The way I think they can manage to do what you (and well, many of us) want is through the file system natively. You know how snapshots work? They use pointers to the changes from the state you snapped, so it can easily reverse and re-reverse and jumping to any snapshot you have. They "just" have to use what they already have.
You know, in some way we have some part of this: you can reset and refresh your PC for now (yes, it's a little different, but we already have a stand-alone base image we can use anytime!)
What i propose is splitting up Windows into core components based on virtual disks to allow for new scenarios as well as trying to fix a bunch of things along the way. Maybe not as extensive but it would be nice to see in some form.
Xbox One does something similar, but not quite.
I understand and agree, but I think it can be achieved without that much vhds. But if they can do it with the less amount of resource usage, I don't care whether they'll use your way, my snapshot-like modification or a mixture. Just do it!