Inside Microsoft Windows 2000, Third Edition (Microsoft Programming Series)

Microsoft Windows 2000 internals have a very logical structure. In Inside Microsoft Windows 2000, David Solomon and Mark Russinovich explain what goes on behind the curtain as Windows 2000 manages memory, regulates access to input and output devices, controls persistent storage, communicates with the network, and does the rest of its duties as a modern operating system. This is a text for programmers, and it's packed with call-by-call documentation of what happens when Windows 2000 is told to perform various operations. There's not as much code in this book as you might expect--mostly, it's text. Once you have the architecture figured out, you should be able to implement your code more easily.

The chapter on memory management exemplifies this careful approach to Windows 2000 internals. What memory management does is discussed (it maps the virtual memory range of threads into registers on physical devices, and handles overflow from volatile memory onto disk). Then, you learn the more obvious ways of observing and tweaking memory performance (the Performance tab in Task Manager and the Registry). Finally, you get detailed information on how Windows 2000 handles mapping, and the use of dozens of memory-related Win32 API calls. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system kernel and its internal operations; the specific behaviors of various subsystems, including memory management, threading, security, caching, and network communications.