Win32 System Programming Resources

There are numerous places to go for detailed information on system programming in Win32, some of which I've tried to list here (in no particular order).

Books - Core Win32

• Advanced Windows, 3rd Edition, by Jeffrey Richter. A must have for Win32 programmers.
  
  
• Win32 Multithreaded Programming, by Aaron Cohen & Mike Woodring. Focuses on multithreadeding issues and solutions, then using C++ to make your life easier.
  
  
• Inside Windows NT, 2nd Edition, by David Solomon. Great high level architectural overview of NT (user-to-kernel). A good book if you're doing Win32 system service type programming, or NT kernel mode programming.
  
  
• Inside the Windows 95 Registry, by Ron Petrusha. What it is, how to use it, and where the OS keeps things. Good for NT as well.

Books - COM & MTS

• Essential COM, by Don Box. Core COM concepts backed by concrete examples (the why + the how).
  
  
• Effective COM - 50 Ways to Improve Your COM and MTS-based Applications, by Don Box, Keith Brown, Tim Ewald, and Chris Sells.
  
  
• Programming Distributed Applications with COM and Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0, by Ted Pattison. As a systems programmer, I never thought I'd refer anyone to a book written for VB developers, but Ted's done such a great job that everyone should read this book.
  
  
• Understanding ActiveX and OLE, by David Chappell. A high level, NON code intensive look at the COM story and architecture.
  
  
• Principals of Transaction Processing, by Philip A. Bernstein and Eric Newcomer. This is actually not a COM or MTS book, but provides some fundamental insights into the theory and practice of transaction processing.

Books - Drivers, Internals, Debugging, Intel Architecture

• Windows 95 System Programming Secrets, by Matt Pietrek. A great place to learn about Windows 95 internals, as well as some nifty debugging tricks along the way.
  
  
• Systems Programming for Windows 95, by Walter Oney.
  
  
• Writing Windows VxDs and Device Drivers, 2nd Edition, by Karen Hazzah. Windows 95 driver development.
  
  
• Using SoftICE, Chapter 12: Exploring Windows NT, product manual for the most excellent SoftICE debugger product from CompuWare NuMega.
  
  
• The Windows NT Device Driver Book, by Art Baker. NT driver development and internals.
  
  
• Windows NT Device Driver Development, by Peter Viscarola and W. Anthony Mason. NT driver development and internals.
  
  
• Windows NT File System Internals, by Rajeev Nagar. NT file system driver development.
  
  
• Pentium Family User's Manual, Volume 3: Architecture and Programming Manual, by Intel Corporation. If you can't wait another minute before learning how the transition from user to kernel mode is made, or what the stack looks like when an interrupt is dispatched.

Books - Security

• Network Security, PRIVATE Communication in a PUBLIC World, by Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, and Mike Speciner. A great book on security. Includes introductory material as well as details on several authentication algorithms (including NTLM and Kerberos).
  
  
• Applied Cryptogrophy, 2nd Edition, by Bruce Schneier. Both a great introduction to the world of cryptography and security, as well as plenty of mathematical goo for the truly fired up.

Magazines

• Microsoft Systems Journal. Chock full of good information on various Windows programming topics from Win32 to COM, to Web stuff. A must have for Windows developers.
  
  
• Windows Developer's Journal. Another very good resource on various Windows programming topics.
  
  
• Dr. Dobb's Journal. Broad coverage of software development (across languages, platforms, tools).
  
  
• Microsoft Interactive Developer. A magazine for Web developers.

Web Sites

Newsgroups

Mailing Lists

Copyright (c) 1998-1999 Mike Woodring.
Last revised: May 13, 1999.