Doug Ross @ Journal

Microsoft Vista: Moving away from .NET?

The impressive Vista OS has had substantial functionality stripped out in order to speed its delivery to customers. The WinFX file system, for instance, was dropped somewhere along the line. And the following article points out that .NET-based OS functionality has also been removed from the system as Vista evolved.

The implied question, then, is if MSFT can't use .NET for its own stated purposes, how can it expect its customers to develop acceptably performing applications and extensions using it?

This article presents results of an investigation of the usage of .NET on five versions of Windows... It is clear that Microsoft intended the .NET framework to be an important constituent of the Longhorn operating system... ...When Longhorn was announced we were told that it would be built substantially using .NET (or at least that was the implication from the publicity over WinFX). For example, Chris Sells, who is in charge of Longhorn content on Microsoft's MSDN web site (and someone who has my utmost respect), said the following in 2003: First and foremost, while Windows Server 2003™ embraced managed code by being the first operating system to ship with the .NET Framework preinstalled, Longhorn is the first operating system whose major new features are actually based on the .NET Framework.... Microsoft appears to have concentrated their development effort in Vista on native code development. In contrast to PDC03LH, Vista has no services implemented in .NET and Windows Explorer does not host the runtime, which means that the Vista desktop shell is not based on the .NET runtime...

Microsoft's Vista: Moving away from .NET?