Mark Russinovich and David Solomon: Windows Internals 5 Released (Channel 9)

Windows kernel expert and kernel "professor" David Solomon and Windows Kernel Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich have written another great book covering, in great detail, the internal composition of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. A third author,Alex Ionescu, joined the fray this time around. Together, they've just released Windows Internals Fifth Edition. My order has been submitted! If you want to really understand the mechanics of Windows' latest generation general purpose kernel, then go get this book.

David was in Redmond recently conducting deep training on the Windows 7 kernel, which contains 95% of the same ingredients as the Windows Vista kernel. So, of course we had to get the dynamic duo together to talk about their book, the Windows kernel, their history (they've been working together for a long time) and their future.

Enjoy! Happy reading.

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intelman

Jun 19, 2009 at 11:16 AM

Kinda cool, but Sysinternals is much more interesting.
Charles Welcome Change

Jun 19, 2009 at 11:43 AM

Sysinternals is a suite of tools for kernel level inspection that relies on the detailed information contained within texts like Windows Internals. They are certainly coupled in this regard.

C
someone

Jun 19, 2009 at 12:03 PM

Wish this is available in the Microsoft Press free book of the month offers.
KevinB

Jun 19, 2009 at 2:58 PM

Interesting post, very good watch. Pity we didn't get to see Alex Ionescou on camera as well. I recommend everyone take some time and read about ReactOS or maybe download a build of it. Alex has made some pretty massive contributions to that project which may explain why David has hired this early-20's dev to lecture MS people on the internals of Windows.
intelman

Jun 19, 2009 at 3:04 PM

Oh yes, for sure. But so much information is freely available already I am not sure how useful Windows Internals 5 will be. Maybe if I didn't have a textbook budget I'd feel differently, but I doubt it.

Authors are smart, have great things to say, I certainly do not mean to be critical of them.
Charles Welcome Change

Jun 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM

I wasn't suggesting you were being critical! Indeed, you are right that the Internet is rife with information that is specific to the Windows kernel, but I don't think it can possibly manifest itself in the same way as a 1200 page book.

Who knows, maybe we can get some Niners signed copies as a random act of kindness

C
emalamisura

Jun 19, 2009 at 5:51 PM

Charles,

I love to watch Mark interviews, he is like a super genius. I would love to hear his opinions on other non-Microsoft technologies and to get his viewpoints. I mean I know you guys are Microsoft, but most of us are serious technology nut jobs. For me I am a hardcore Windows and .NET guy but I also own a slew of Macs, an iPhone a couple Touches and I do Cocoa and Objective-C development. I have a couple of Ubuntu machines also, so I think it would be super fascinating to get a couple of these super geniuses together and just do a coffee house type of discussion about technology in general. Maybe there history, some informal discussions, the best part of this interview for me was when Mark went into his history and explained his experiences with the Unix mach kernel, thats really kewl stuff! It just shows how much more diverse the Windows kernel is, more than what people think.
Charles Welcome Change

Jun 19, 2009 at 5:56 PM

I agree. It's really cool that Mark went from being an outsider with expert level insider technical understanding (because of his passion for operating systems, education, experience and native brain power) to the most senior engineer/architect on the Windows kernel team. Fate rocks.

C

PS: As to your request, I'll see what I can do. It's a good idea! Perhaps an E2E2E2E in the making.
emalamisura

Jun 19, 2009 at 6:51 PM

Sweet, I am excited about this possible interview!!
khasan

Jun 21, 2009 at 2:43 AM

Speaking about imported geniuses from "enemy" camp, I wonder what is Neal Gafter is upto. Last thing I heard he was working with Anders . but no details is available . He is a very candid and eloquent speaker much like Mark . Charles , can we expect to see Neal on channel9 anytime soon ??
Ilia101 Time is $

Jul 19, 2009 at 2:16 AM

Great people, great book.
Ganesh84

Nov 05, 2009 at 9:34 PM

Didnt see alex around. Cant wait to get the book .
zian Exploding heads since 1988

Jun 25, 2010 at 4:05 PM

According to Neal's website, he's "Participating in the design of future revisions of the C# Programming Language: currently investigating support for asynchronous programming" as a "Partner Architect, Visual Studio Managed Languages" at Microsoft.