News: 0180451719

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Microsoft Says It's Not Planning To Use AI To Rewrite Windows From C To Rust

(Wednesday December 24, 2025 @05:40PM (msmash) from the serenity-now dept.)


Microsoft has [1]denied any plans to rewrite Windows 11 using AI and Rust after a LinkedIn post from one of its top-level engineers sparked a wave of online backlash by claiming the company's goal was to " [2]eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030 ."

Galen Hunt, a principal software engineer responsible for several large-scale research projects at Microsoft, made the claim in what was originally a hiring post for his team. His original wording described a "North Star" of "1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code" and outlined a strategy to "combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases." The repeated use of "our" in the post led many to interpret it as an official company direction rather than a personal research ambition.

Frank X. Shaw, Microsoft's head of communications, told Windows Latest that the company has no such plans. Hunt subsequently edited his LinkedIn post to clarify that "Windows is NOT being rewritten in Rust with AI" and that his team's work is a research project focused on building technology to enable language-to-language migration. He characterized the reaction as "speculative reading between the lines."



[1] https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/12/24/microsoft-denies-rewriting-windows-11-using-ai-after-an-employees-one-engineer-one-month-one-million-code-post-on-linkedin-causes-outrage/

[2] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/25/12/23/010200/microsoft-to-replace-all-cc-code-with-rust-by-2030



Omg (Score:4, Funny)

by liqu1d ( 4349325 )

Copilot wrote it! It's trying to get out!

Quickly changed their minds (Score:1)

by apn_k ( 938000 )

Changed their minds after massive backlash

Re: (Score:3)

by Local ID10T ( 790134 )

More likely his bosses only found out about the plan after the public backlash.

Re: Quickly changed their minds (Score:2)

by klipclop ( 6724090 )

I'm not sure what's more sad. People still using Windows 11 in all it's horrible spyware ridden slop glory, or people caring enough to cry about Windows 11 being rewritten in rust... IMO it's something that sounds very pedantic to cause a "backlash".

2030? (Score:2)

by kellin ( 28417 )

Are we sure Windows 11 will still be supported by 2030?

Re: 2030? (Score:2)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

You may be onto something. They're just going to release Rust-based Windows as another version.

Nah, they're getting rid of desktop Windows (Score:2)

by ebunga ( 95613 )

They're switching to Linux for the desktop. That's why they hired the systemd guy.

Re: (Score:2)

by kellin ( 28417 )

And Linux has started including Rust, so...

Edit it or else... (Score:2)

by devslash0 ( 4203435 )

...or you get fired. No matter that we told you to write the article in the first place.

Scrap that new role opening, too.

Also rejecting 1000 monkeys on typewriters (Score:2)

by gurps_npc ( 621217 )

And rejected the offer from Ivan in Moscow, Mei in Beijing, Patel in India, and Mrs. Gibson's third grade class in Casper, Wyoming.

It wasn't the goal that was the problem (Score:2)

by david.emery ( 127135 )

It was the schedule (1 million lines per month) and believing it could be done through AI.

The goal of replacing crappy C and C++ with Rust would be laudable, if executed correctly.

Nothing is but what is not.