Windows Internals, Part 1

Delve inside Windows architecture and internals—and see how core components work behind the scenes. Led by three renowned internals experts, this classic guide is fully updated for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2—and now presents its coverage in two volumes.

As always, you get critical insider perspectives on how Windows operates. And through hands-on experiments, you’ll experience its internal behavior firsthand—knowledge you can apply to improve application design, debugging, system performance, and support.

In Part 1, you will:

• Understand how core system and management mechanisms work—including the object manager, synchronization, Wow64, Hyper-V, and the registry
• Examine the data structures and activities behind processes, threads, and jobs
• Go inside the Windows security model to see how it manages access, auditing, and authorization
• Explore the Windows networking stack from top to bottom—including APIs, BranchCache, protocol and NDIS drivers, and layered services
• Dig into internals hands-on using the kernel debugger, performance monitor, and other tools

Alex Ionescu is a chief software architect and consultant expert in low-level system software, kernel development, security training, and reverse engineering. He teaches Windows internals course with David Solomon, and is active in the security research community.