Develop OS DAW

How many problems would be eliminated if Sonar had a dedicated OS that was distributed with the product. You could have a dual boot option to launch Windows or Sonar. Sonar would have its own partition and an OS completely optimized for DAW operations.
 
Back in the 386 - 486 days, games came this way. When you ran them they took over the computer until you were finished.

Except...drivers depend on Windows functionality, VSTs depend on Windows functionality, registration often requires internet connectivity so a browser/http support would need to be built in, video support leverages Microsoft's codec subsystem. And so on.

A DAW OS without significant proportions of Windows (or OS X similarly) would provide very limited functionality for software and hardware we already use and would want to use in the future. So it's not really viable.

From a standard Win 8.1 installation I've tried running with as few services running as possible and it didn't make the slightest bit of difference to the way or speed or stability with which Sonar ran.

Outside of Sonar it didn't change DPC latency either.

Win8.1 runs well enough for me that I'm not inclined to dive into the world of tweaks.
 
As far as a dedicated DAW operating environment goes?  Well, there have been similar things done in the past that proved infeasible over the long haul.  X-Windows stations, p-machines, LISP machines, even java machines.
 
Being able to keep up with hardware is the challenge in niche markets like ours.  The only ones of the above that enjoyed any financial success were those in academic and military applications where taxpayers subsidized the cost.
 
From my perspective, we seem to be on an excellent trajectory for price/performance.  Think about how much more we're able to do today than we could 5 or even 3 years ago.  Imagine the next 3 to 5.
 
I haven't put pencil to paper on this, but I don't see any real ROI for the idea.

There was a similar *nix based post a day or two ago.  Looks really cool for all multimedia except audio because of driver support.  It's one I'll be watching

Maybe the odd service might if it's badly written, but I wouldn't expect it to make a significant difference either.

I don't think you have any idea what the development and maintenance of an OS means, plus Windows is always the best scapegoat when problems can arise from many sources, including hardware, badly behaving plugin and badly configured / non maintained  systems.
 
Linux, the most contributed to OS, barely has adequate drivers offering after decades.

Brando, you and I have the exact same view on the purpose of this forum. Couldn't have said it better myself.

ampfixer
How many problems would be eliminated if Sonar had a dedicated OS that was distributed with the product. You could have a dual boot option to launch Windows or Sonar. Sonar would have its own partition and an OS completely optimized for DAW operations.

They would basically have to write their own version of Windows. Not likely to happen. Then they'd have to get all the hardware manufacturers to support it. Equally unlikely to happen. The nearest thing to this that would be practical would be for them to use a version of Linux, but since Linux is the worst mainstream OS for audio that would be a bad choice. It would also take ages to rewrite Sonar to work on both platforms.

Microsoft offers a product called Windows Embedded that allows OEM's to configure an OS that does just what the OP is asking for. It's used for cash registers, ATM machines and other special purpose  devices that don't require the complete user experience though it can also add those elements too. I wouldn't be surprised if your friendly neighborhood DAW builder were able to build you such a beast.