30 year old code killed! Microsoft rewrites Windows kernel with 180,000 lines of Rust
Rust’s disruption of C has already begun.
Microsoft is rewriting its core Windows libraries using the Rust programming language.May 11 — The latest Windows 11 Insider Preview release is the first to include the memory-safe programming language Rust, according to Azure Chief Technology Officer Mark Russinovich.
“If you’re on the Win11 Insider ring, you’ll get your first taste of Rust in the Windows kernel,” Russinovich tweeted last night.
In any case, this time it was quick: Microsoft only made its plans to replace parts of the Windows kernel with Rust code public in mid-April at the BlueHat IL 2023 security conference in Israel.
At that time, David “dwizzle” Weston, director of security for the Windows operating system, announced in a presentation that Rust would officially be in the Windows kernel.
“In the next few weeks or months, people will start using Rust in the kernel to boot Windows, which is pretty cool. The basic goal of this work is to convert some of the system’s C++ data types into Rust form.”
