Microsoft Windows Internals

Index by Subject

• Microsoft Windows Internals
• Mark E. Russinovich & David A. Solomon
• Microsoft
• 0735619174

As most readers here know, I'm no fan of Microsoft. However, Microsoft operating systems are a big part of today's computer world. While I may hope for change (and I really believe there will be change over the next decade), I can't afford to ignore Microsoft entirely.

Hence this book. If you have been a casual Microsoft programmer, hacker or support person, this will give you the tools and knowledge to step up.

Strictly speaking, this isn't really an "internals" book. Microsoft isn't going to release source code or even necessarily tell all there is to tell about system calls and API's. This is a "black box" approach: the authors (and Microsoft) provide tools and code that you can use to get a glimpse at what is bubbling in the bowels of the beast. From that view, this is an "exploration" book: the authors help you explore Microsoft code from the outside. The book is chock full of "experiments" toward that end: some of these are simply helpful in understanding what's going on, but others would also be very useful for future troubleshooting, and that makes this even more valuable if Microsoft support is part of your life.

Warning: this is "hands-on". You will need a Microsoft XP, 2000 or 2003 OS to play with. That statement might cause some readers to shake their heads ("Who wouldn't?") but some readers here actually may not own any Microsoft systems..

I haven't made my way through the entire text yet - this isn't high priority for me. I'm interested, yes, I enjoy working through the experiments and I have learned more than a little, but it's not something that engrosses me to the exclusion of everything else.

I noticed that the Amazon reviewers who did not like this were all people who had read Unix/Linux internals books.. yeah, well, this isn't that, is it?

Tony Lawrence 2008-01-15 Rating: 4.0

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