Steve “Chippy” Paine links to some interesting news that Microsoft is looking to componetize an embedded OS hot on the heels of the planned November release of Windows CE 6.0R2. The time line is a couple of years out with a target of 2009/2010 for Windows Vista Embedded and seems to have the nickname “MinWin.”

Many mobile enthusiasts have been asking for this for some time, and those calls have accelerated with the issues folks have been having with Vista. “Chippy” lists the things he’d like to see pulled from the OS and he leaves out those who want to do some actual Inking in his desires:

“If it was me I'd leave out handwriting support, voice control support, indexing, pre-fetching, a huge stack of drivers, sidebar, pen flicks and aero.”

It is bad enough, IMHO, that the UMPC and MID OEMs are forgetting that some folks actually do want and need an Inking experience. If Microsoft is going to give OEMs an opportunity to cherry pick and componetize the embedded OS, I hope someone realizes that real work can be done with a pen.