VMS doesn’t have different OS personalities, as NT does, but its kernel and Executive subsystems are clear predecessors to NT’s. Digital developers wrote the VMS kernel almost entirely in VAX assembly language. To be portable across different CPU architectures, Microsoft developers wrote NT’s kernel almost entirely in C. In developing NT, these designers rewrote VMS in C, cleaning up, tuning, tweaking, and adding some new functionality and capabilities as they went. This statement is in danger of trivializing their efforts; after all, the designers built a new API (i.e., Win32), a new file system (i.e., NTFS), and a new graphical interface subsystem and administrative environment while maintaining backward compatibility with DOS, OS/2, POSIX, and Win16. Nevertheless, the migration of VMS internals to NT was so thorough that within a few weeks of NT’s release, Digital engineers noticed the striking similarities.
Those similarities could fill a book. In fact, you can read sections of VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures (Digital Press) as an accurate description of NT internals simply by translating VMS terms to NT terms. Table 1 lists a few VMS terms and their NT translations. Although I won’t go into detail, I will discuss some of the major similarities and differences between Windows NT 3.1 and VMS 5.0, the last version of VMS Dave Cutler and his team might have influenced.
Another old article, from November 1998 this time, also by Mark Russinovich.
It inherited the old security issues that plagued VMS
https://www.zdnet.com/article/mission-critical-system-alert-40-year-…
“Mission-critical system alert: 40-year-old OpenVMS hit by exploitable bug”
Yep, Windows is reinvigorated VAX/VMS with a new API (Win32), filesystem (NTFS), and graphics that is compiled for more modern hardware.
I like when these articles come out. The architects of VAX/VMS designed Windows NT which is the architecture of Windows 2000, Windows XP, and today’s desktop Windows and Windows Server.
It is described in detail in the book “Inside Windows NT” by Dave Cutler. The arguments about Windows-on-Windows and whether the graphics driver should be moved into the Executive (otherwise known as the “kernel”) is given a good treatment.
Edited 2018-08-01 04:03 UTC
Wasn’t this already posted about a month or two ago? Still a great read.
Kinda sick of hearing badly researched stories like this. First comment is from one of the original NT guys.
Yes NT had the blessed Dave on it. Yes he had some ideas he carried over. No, it isn’t VMS. Lots of differences under the hood.
This author is so badly researched he still thinks VMS is at version 7.1. *Slow clap*
Tip: v8.4 came out a few years ago. 7.0 was 1995? 1996 if memory serves.
Did you read the date on the article, genius?
*Slow clap*
Nope. So I deserve that actually. There’s been two other’s in the last few months going down this path.
If I were you, I’d rush to edit my rant while you can.
Hint: This article was written in November 30, 1998.
– Gilboa
When Dave Cutler switched from Digital to Microsoft (“Away from the bullshit”) he angrily declared that Microsoft was now getting years and years of Digital funded OS research practically for free because management Digital was so inept at utilizing the resources they had and did not appreciate his skills.
Well, Gates obviously did.
I’ve always find these comparisons interesting.
More interesting though is the stuff from VMS that they don’t have. In a lot of those cases, if they did have it, computing as we know it today would probably be drastically different. Imagine for example what the world might be like today if WIndows NT had included support for the same type of SSI clustering that VMS had.
Yep, the Cluster wide filesystem with locking really worked well and included in the base product and not some expensive add on. My Desktop was for several years, a diskless Microvax that was part of a 12 node cluster.
Booted over TbaseT Ethernet.
Not quite. Everything in VMS-land was an “expensive add on,” the base system did not even come with a TCP/IP package.
Why would you need TCP/IP when you have DECnet?
Both as a VMS developer and then part of NT/Alpha development teams. There were some team members who were part of original VMS core team hanging back with Digital. What I learnt from them has served me well so far.. Great read, brought back lot of old memories