Why do operating systems do low level stuff in C and C++? Why not just C++?

Posted by Cole Johnson on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Cole Johnson
Published on 2012-12-10T17:32:10Z Indexed on 2012/12/10 23:17 UTC
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On the Wikipedia page for Windows, it states the Windows is written in Assembly for the bootloader and task switcher, and C and C++ for kernel routines. This confuses me because AFAIK, you can call C++ functions from an extern "C"'d block as C++ is just C with extra features (all of which can be rewritten in C if you wanted to AFAIK). I can get using C for the kernel functions so pure C apps can use them (like printf and such), but if they can just be wrapped in an extern "C " block, then why code in C?

So my question is: Why would a kernel be written in both C and C++ instead of just C++

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