Which kernel has MS Windows?

Question

I saw a question about the Linux kernel. Reading that I had this doubt .

Answer 1

There is a Hybrid Kernel in the Windows NT branch. This is not a monolithic kernel, where all services run in kernel mode or in Micro-kernels, where everything runs in user space. This provides a balance between the protection obtained from the microkernel and the performance that can be seen in the monolithic kernel (since there are fewer user / kernel context switches).

As an example, device drivers and the hardware abstraction layer run in the kernel node, but the workstation service starts in user mode. The wikipedia article on Hybrid Kernels has a good review.

The Windows Internals Reference Describes the Hybrid Approach

... Carnegie Mellon University Mach operating system, a modern example of microkernel architecture, implements a minimal core that includes thread scheduling, message transfer, virtual memory and device drivers. Everything else, including various APIs, file systems and networks, works in user mode. However, commercial implementations of a fly-by-kernel microkernel operating system typically run at least the entire file system, managing network and code memory in kernel mode. The reason is that it is simple: a clean microkernel design is commercially impractical because it is too unsatisfactory.

Answer 2

Hyru Hybrid Kernel is the name of the kernel that Windows systems after Windows 98, before that it was a graphical interface superimposed on DOS using a monolithic kernel.

Answer 3

According to Wikipedia, it is a Hybrid core. Which may or may not be just marketing, talking about the same as monolithic. However, the graphic on the last page makes some things clearer.

Most importantly, almost no program on Windows uses the kernel API directly. And the full Windows API subsystem resides in user space, which is a fairly large part of the OS, as we see it. And in later versions, Microsoft began to pull more and more device drivers from kernel space into user space (which is especially good with some drivers, for example, for video cards, which are apparently as complex as the operating system).