Windows Internals: The Implementation of the Windows Operating Environment

Just adding a quick review to try and undo the effects of the individual who rated this one star. Don't buy this book to understand current (circa 2009) versions of Windows. Buy it to understand the challenges early Windows developers faced and to marvel at Matt's ingenuity as he unravels the many undocumented internals of early Windows. Yes, most of the book does not apply any more, except perhaps that Windows is still an O/S based on the concept of the Dynamic Link Library (DLL). This is a book by an early Windows developer who defended the idea that it's OK to lift up the lid and understand how your computer works. It's a battle that continues to this day between the open source community and the software industry, and this book may just inspire you to join the fight.

I got this brilliant book and read it when it came out and only post this note because I saw some genius below give it ONE star because "it's outdated". I find it outrageous when some dummkopf gives a good book one star because it's not the book he needs: according to this logic one could just as well give Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ one star becuse it doesn't teach you about XP! People who act this way should be committed for having no brain and being a danger to society. _Windows Internals_ by Pietrek is a fifteen-year-old book about Windows 3.1 and it is _this_ that's outdated. The book does not mislead the reader as far as what it's about in any way. So yeah, this book will teach you nothing about XP and Vista (nor even NT); it is a book on a piece of dead technology. So you probably don't need it anymore, at least not as a direct study aid sort of thing -- except, perhaps, for this: Technologies, especially software, do age and die very quickly today, but human intelligence doesn't! This is a fantastic book where the author uncorks Win3.1 and studies its internal workings. In a sense it still is good to read this book -- just in order to learn how this is done. You can never go wrong by reading a well-written book by a brilliant author, no matter how outdated the subject matter. If you have time to spend on general learning, get this book; looks like today it can be had for pennies, so take advantage! Whether to read this book or not is only a question of having time, I believe: it's a brilliant piece of work.

I have recently bought and finished reading this book. This book covers the internals of the windows 3.11 (16bit) operating system. Because windows 3.11 does not use most of today's PC technology, the ia32 architecture, protected mode kernel/application enviroment, some of the materials are really not relevant any more. However, the mechanism and the design of the windows 3.11 is still very relevant to help understand modern operating systems such as Windows NT/2000 and even Linux. Matt is an outstanding windows developer and his understanding of the windows internals still helps.