Talk:Windows Programming/Windows System Architecture

This article is, of course, completely wrong. Once we have made enough fun of it, I'll delete this horror --KJK::Hyperion 09:35, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * With all due respect, most of the information in this artical is taken directly from books, including Petzold's "Programming Windows". I don't doubt that a few errors have crept in here or there, but to say it's completely wrong or to call it a "horror" is inappropriate, and inaccurate. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * No, seriously, this whole book is shitty and misleading. How about this page? It portrays ntdll.dll in kernel mode. It mentions a component called wingdi.dll that doesn't even exist. It talks about features at vastly different layers all at once without any sense of structure (like lumping together msvcrt.dll with the other DLLs, and ws2_32.dll which is completely irrelevant at this point). Petzold is an inappropriate source, too: Petzold is an expert in the user interface and graphics subsystem, but for a real overview of the system architecture? try Russinovich, Solomon, Pietrek. Seriously, we only allow it to exist because it totally cracks us up --KJK::Hyperion 01:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * First off, I am inclined to respect information published by Petzold, and I have no reason not to take at face value information that he presents about windows, especially since that information is duplicated in a number of other, respectable sources. For instance, the diagram depicting ntdll.dll operating in kernel mode was adapted from Eldad Eilam' "Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering." Other details about the system internals are taken from Johnathan Hart's "Windows System Programming". ws2_32.dll is mentioned here as a matter of interest primarily: it's inclusion demonstrates the modular nature of windows, and shows are certain families of functions are contained in specific libraries. The overall purpose of this book is to talk about programming windows in an overview, not to discuss the minute details of the system architecture. Therefore, we are presenting modules from various levels of operation simultaneously to show that a programmer needs to interact with multiple different modules from across the system to create an effective program. This is not to say that some of the DLL files are misnamed, but that's a simple error that is easily fixable. Rather then complain about the material, you should jump in and help contribute. If this book is "shitty" and "misleading", it's because knowledgable wikibookians arent contributing to it. --Whiteknight (talk) (projects) 13:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)