It is not difficult at all to imagine the complexity of an operating system like Windows 10. With so much history behind it if we think about the entire Windows family, so many capabilities and so much dominance in the market. Because despite the problems that lately drag with each new update, this creation of Microsoft has 1000 million users.
To get an idea of the dimensions of this colossus, one of the engineers responsible for the Windows 10 kernel has revealed some interesting figures about this operating system by answering a question on Quora.
Windows: a code that has evolved over the years
Responding to the question, “What programming language is used to create Windows 10?” Axel Rietschin, Microsoft engineer who answered explained that most of the kernel is written in C. And encourage you to check it out: “You can find leaked copies of the Windows Research Kernel even on GitHub and see for yourself.”
This programming language, however, is not solely responsible for shaping the Redmond operating system. In its creation, in addition to C, C #, JavaScript, TypeScript, VB.NET or C ++ also take part. In fact, the engineer explains that as we move towards user mode and towards newer developments we will find less C and more C ++. It seems that Rust may be the great substitute. As we move towards user mode and towards newer developments we will find less C and more C ++.
The answer, however, goes beyond the specific programming languages with which Windows has been created and continues to be created and enters, as we said at the beginning, quite interesting figures about the operating system. And, more specifically, about its size, largely unknown to many.
“What most people don’t realize is the size of Windows – this is a gigantic project of truly epic proportions.”
According to Rietschin, the complete tree with all the source code, the test code and everything that constitutes the “Windows source code” is more than half a terabyte in size, in more than 4 million files. Make sure, if the above were not enough, that you can spend a year searching this tree for more than half a million folders that contain the code of each component that constitutes the operating system workstation, the server products and all their editions., associated development kits and tools, and see what’s inside; read the file names and try to figure out what each one does.
“It would take a life (or two) to read it all,” says the engineer.