
Windows Kernel Architecture Internals (2010) [pdf] - doener
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/wincore2010/Dave_Probert_1.pdf
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tinco
Anyone know if there's work being done on a 7th edition of Windows Internals?
I read Inside Windows 2000, which was totally awesome, but not super much
changed on the architectural level between 2000 and Windows 7 (which is
covered in the 6th edition), at least not to my untrained eye. Windows 8 and
10 might have some radically new stuff, just judging from the range of devices
they target, and their efforts on speeding it up on slower hardware (reversing
the trend of the bloating Windows versions up to Vista).

Now I've not really used Windows much in the past 10 years. I switched to OSX
and then to Ubuntu (when the desktop experience became more bearable, and the
license issues with OSX more important to me). But reading about the NT kernel
feels like reading about how a kernel _should_ be designed. It really is that
much cleaner in my opinion than anything I ever read on OSX or Linux. If they
ever did open source it, I'd certainly join a subculture of before-it-got-hip
Windows kernel lovers with XMonad as a window manager ;)

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Windows Internals 7th Edition Book 1 is available already[0], and there will
be 2 more books[1]. Russinovich and Solomon have stepped down a while ago,
according to that forum thread, but the new book lists them as authors because
Catlin and Hanrahan worked over the already existing stuff.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Book-User-
Edition/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Internals-Book-User-
Edition/dp/0735684189)

[1] [http://forum.sysinternals.com/when-is-the-7th-edition-
book-f...](http://forum.sysinternals.com/when-is-the-7th-edition-book-for-
win-8-coming-out_topic29288_post142573.html#142573)

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srean
I have always heard that the windows kernel is actually pretty well designed.
In particular the way it handles concurrency and asynchronous I/O.
Unfortunately I have not found (euphemism for: I have been lazy) an easily
consumable description of its differences from the Unix, Linux APIs supporting
concurrency and asynchrony features, in what ways are they better, with some
code examples thrown in that illustrate the differences

If anyone would be so kind to humor me with such a comparison or pointer...

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
Windows Internals is the canonical resource.

(I bet you would enjoy the concurrency and I/O sections from The Be Book and
The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System too.)

~~~
twoodfin
Is The Be Book available in PDF or ebook format anywhere?

~~~
mattds
I believe you can find something about BeOS here:

[https://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/index.html](https://www.haiku-
os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/index.html)

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nikital
If you're into NT kernel internals, I recommend an excellent book "What Makes
It Page?". It describes the VMM in way too much detail (in a good way).

It's a great combination of theory and practice - it describes concepts and
then shows them on the live kernel. For example, the author introduces the
concept of cache coloring and then he shows in WinDbg the actual variable on
the process data structure where the color is stored.

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-It-Page-
Windows/dp/14791142...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Makes-It-Page-
Windows/dp/1479114294)

~~~
trentnelson
Phenomenal book, highly recommended.

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marcocampos
For more about this, have a look at "Windows Internals" (6th edition is the
latest, I believe) by Mark Russinovich, David Solomon and Alex Ionescu. It's
an awesome book.

