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Comment by thesuperbigfrog | Hacker News Reader

First it was Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Now Windows Subsystem for Android has been added too.

It is the OS/2-ization of Windows as more subsystems are added to try to make Windows a clearinghouse for any possible desktop use.

What could come next?

Windows Subsystem for Xbox - so anything that plays on Xbox will play on Windows

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One of the first subsystems for Windows NT was the OS/2 subsystem. Some versions even supported Presentation Manager (GUI applications).

https://second.wiki/wiki/2-subsystem

Never used that one. Makes sense though since NT grew out of research on OS/2 v3. The Posix subsystem[0] didn't work so well the times I tried working with it. The OS/2 subsystem didn't matter so much as Windows NT popularity outgrew that of OS/2 pretty quickly.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem

If they open sourced the POSIX subsystem, it might have had a chance to keep growing.

Another original subsystem was POSIX subsystem which provided a UNIX-like layer on Windows.

The design of the NT kernel was very well done and doing this type of thing is one of their explicate goals. Microsoft did a great job of getting great people to do great things in the early 1990s and they are still benefiting from that. (though in the 1990s computer hardware wasn't really up to running NT)

The hardware was just fine - in fact, your average late-'90s piece of junk would run NT much faster than Win95/98. The problem was the lack of drivers.

Win98 maybe, but that is borderline. Your average piece of junk computer from the Win95 era didn't have enough memory, but that is also mid-90s. By the late 90s high end machines were coming with enough memory, though the low end machines still weren't up to it.

Drivers of course were an issue.

If that's like WSL2 that's a complete VM. And WSL1 was already departing from the trasitional NT subsystems anyway (because e.g. they were not designed for completely bypassing NT userspace to the point of not mapping it)

PCs don't have the hardware security infrastructure at the moment for Microsoft to feel comfortable adding Xbox support. Even the previous gen never put decrypted content into RAM, which is part of how it became the first major console to not get hacked in it's lifetime.

Eh, I think the developer mode option they gave had at least some effect on dampening hack attempts.

Retro/emulation/homebrew fans could use that as to do what they wanted, and thus weren't working on cracking the system alongside pirates.

To add to that list, Windows subsystem on Windows aka WOW64.

Some commentators at the time said that supporting windows apps on OS/2 significantly contributed to its downfall. It meant that developers only needed to write their apps for Windows and OS/2 users could run them too.

Perhaps we will see a reduction in certain classes of windows apps (slack?).

> Windows Subsystem for Xbox - so anything that plays on Xbox will play on Windows

I think Microsoft will just stream Xbox games through the cloud for Game Pass subscribers. That way, you get Xbox games on PCs, Macs, smart TVs, you name it.

They're already doing that with Xbox Cloud Gaming[1]. You can use the Xbox app or a browser.

[1] https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/play

I mean, that wouldn't be hardest thing in the world to do, afaik, XBox OS is a windows kernel ...

They are already offering all Xbox games on PC going forward. It's part of their strategy lol.

Windows subsystem for PalmOS

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