Based on the V-System, Vanguard introduced standardized object identifiers and a unique message chaining system for improved performance.
Vanguard was generally very similar to the V-System, but added support for true object-oriented programming of the operating system.
User applications ask for services by sending messages to these servers, using some form of inter-process communications (IPC), in contrast to asking the kernel to do this work via a system call (syscall) or trap.
Under V the IPC system appears to be conceptually modeled on remote procedure calls (RPC) from the client application's perspective.
Servers handling these requests operated in a similar fashion to the clients, opening connections with the kernel to pass data.
Under the V-System model, the message passing overhead is reduced because the process scheduler does not need to be consulted, there is no question as to what should next be run, which is the server being called.
Much of the performance problem normally associated with microkernel systems are due to the context switches as messages are passed back and forth between applications.
In some cases the overhead of a context switch is greater than the time it takes to actually run the request, so Vanguard's chaining mechanism could result in real-world performance improvements.
The service stored well known character names representing various objects in a distributed V system, for example, 2nd floor laser printer.
Under the V-System, objects in servers were referred to via an ad hoc private key of some sort, say a 32-bit integer.