Many of us complain about just how much of a hard slog it is to do anything in the Aero interface of Vista. And apparently, at least one Microsoft engineer admitted during a presentation at the University of Illinois. "A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit," said Microsoft distinguished engineer Eric Traut. And as Jerem Many of us complain about just how much of a hard slog it is to do anything in the Aero interface of Vista. And apparently, at least one Microsoft engineer admitted during a presentation at the University of Illinois. “A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that’s maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit,” said Microsoft distinguished engineer Eric Traut. And as Jeremy Kirk reported, Traut is trying to do something about it with MinWin, a shrunk-down version of the Windows kernel that requires less than 40 MB of RAM to run, and fits in 25 MB of storage. That, of course, is without a graphical UI.Traut’s efforts are going to be part of the next version of Windows, called Windows 7, due out by 2010. Traut demonstrated MinWin for his audience; the demo is part of a video of the presentation. What’s really encouraging about Traut’s project and Windows 7 as a whole is that Microsoft is apparently striving for it to be fully modular–meaning you can install just the features of the OS you want without having to write a full install to disk.That could lead to a whole new approach to deploying Windows in the enterprise–and some interesting side-effects as well. If Microsoft, say, publishes the module specs, someone could theoretically develop an alternative GUI for Windows 7, or replace some other element of the operating system. In other words, as Microsoft is busy rattling its intellectual property swords over Linux, Windows could offer some of the same mix and match functionality as Linux distros. Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business