Reviews for Windows Internals 5th Edition (PRO-Developer)

1. Excellent as Usual

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2010

   I already had the fourth edition of this book (covering Windows XP and Server 2003) and had been looking forward to the updated version for many months. The new version covering Vista and Windows Server 2008 is not just a rehash of the previous edition but a drains-up rewrite covering a huge amount of topics that have not appeared in previous editions.
   
   As this book covers the Windows kernel it's certainly not for the novice, however as a resource for professional programmers and system administrators it is unparalleled. Congratulations to Mark Russinovich and David Solomon on another excellent title in the Windows Internals range - I can't wait for the sixth edition!

2. Excelent book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2009

   As an Alex's blog regular follower, I had great expectations on the outcome of this book. I've got to say that based on his previous work, I was a little disappointed on the contents shortage of some major important aspects of the kernel. But, it still is the best reference out there and is much more clearer and complete than the previous editions. So i'll give 5 thumbs up :). Definitely a must for those kernel geeks out threre.

3. After the 4th and the 5th, I shall be pre-ordering the 6th ;-}

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2009

   Around October 2008, I invested in the 4th (XP & Server 2000/2003) edition of this book and having been really impressed with its breadth and depth of cover I knew that the 5th edition (whenever it was released) would be a good read, although I naively expected that it would be a simple rehash of the 4th.
   
   What a pleasant surprise, when the 5th (Vista & Server 2008) arrived much larger than 4th and completely rewritten. It's a total complement to the 4th.
   
   The pair are essential for anyone wanting to appreciate the incredible amount of development that has occured from XP to VISTA or for anyone wanting to develop software for use across the current Windows platforms.
   
   The tools described for research and debugging (many free from Sysinternals) are clearly explained. Well done Mark, David & Alex.
   
   Looking forward to the 6th edition for Windows 7 (now that is confusing)

4. Excellent as usual from these guys.

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12rd, 2009

   Another excellent book from the guys. If you've read their prior efforts, you'll know what to expect - hugely detailed, but readable and understandable descriptions of how windows works from the inside out.
   
   Sadly as was the case with 4th edition, there's no ebook supplied, but it's still excellent.
   
   What is even more interesting is the planned 6th edition for next year for the small(ish) set of changes between Vista and Windows 7. That'll be great to see.
   
   Mike

5. Very in depth resource for IT Pros and Developers

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2009

   I have only had this book for a couple of days and have not completely finished reading it yet so cannot comment on all of the chapters, but what I have read so far has been interesting and valuable. Obviously in a book like this that goes into so much depth in so many areas, there are going to be some parts that are not useful to everyone but there is so much detailed information in here that I think any IT pro or Windows developer will find it an interesting and useful read.
   
   This is very different to any other IT book I have read because normally these books just tell you how to do something and perhaps give you a brief explanation of how it works behind the scenes but this book is ALL ABOUT what happens behind the scenes. As a small example: a couple of pages in the Security section explain what exactly happens when you press Ctrl Alt Delete and log in (and also what happens before that point) - it explains which processes, DLLs, APIs, internal functions etc are used and in what order they are used... and that is one of the less detailed parts of this book! Other sections even go far as telling you the names of internal data structures and constants that Windows uses to do its work and although I have only had a brief look at the Memory Management chapter, it seems extremely detailed (over 140 pages).
   
   It is actually more useful to me as an IT pro than I thought as it has given me an insight into things that I use often at work such as Hyper V (although that is one of the less in depth parts, there are still roughly 15 pages dedicated to it), the Volume Shadow Copy service, the Cache system built into Windows, networking, crash dump analysis and much more.
   
   One thing I will say, which is not necessarily negative, is that it is not for beginners. I think really you need to understand at least a little bit about programming concepts and terminology and also be very familiar with Windows in general to really understand what a lot of this book is telling you. I've been an IT Professional for 3 years or so and do some .NET programming whenever I can but I struggle to grasp some of the things that are in here as there is not always an explanation of some of the terms or acronnyms used. To be fair to the author though, I dont think explanations of such things belong in this book as then it would be weighed down with explanations of too many basic concepts etc (and it is already roughly 1100 pages!).
   
   Overall, one of the most interesting IT books I have purchased and I am looking forward to reading the rest of it.