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The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers (2nd Edition)

The Windows 2000 Device Driver Book: A Guide for Programmers (2nd Edition)

List Price: $59.99
Your Price: $40.79
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Must buy if you are writing Windows 2000 Device Drivers
Review: I just finished this book. Great book. I almost did not buy the book based on the review by Tomer Cohen. He stated that the book was outdated. Actually, it is completely updated for Windows 2000. I took the advice of a coworker and bought it - I'm glad I did. The book has great examples and was easy for me to follow. I definitely give it a 5+.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointing book.
Review: I was disappointed by this book because it simply assumed you were a robot with Microsoft's DDK at hand. It was missing major information about the actual structure of the various kinds of device drivers and doesn't add much value beyond the chaos that is Microsoft documentation. Thumbs down.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Must have
Review: If you are writing Windows Device Drivers, this is one of 3 books you absolutely must have. Buy it. And read this one first.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: OK, I'll chime in
Review: It's a great BEGINNER'S book on NT device drivers. There's no better book to START FROM. It's a noticeable improvement over the previous edition, it's cleaner, corrected, it's updated for Win2K, it's better made, easier on eyes, pictures are better too. There's practically nothing negative I can say about this book.

Some reviewers complained that it doesn't cover this or that (network drivers, for example.) Well, it's an INTRODUCTORY book. It sticks to the core NT driver area (and as such, it'll be sufficient for 90% of what most people have to deal with.) Here I'd like to stress that I don't mean it's too shallow, it's fine, rather, it's not all-encompassing. But an all-ancompassing book would probably take 10,000 pages while you want to start small so as not to be swamped. Check the DDK out -- and it's not all-encompassing either -- it's a 5-piece book set! (And I wouldn't call it very readable :-) So, yes, the book is somewhat limited in scope, but within its scope, it's plenty profound.

Therefore, my very strict evaluation goes thusly: it's a good book, the best one to start from, and it's one that is good to have in general, whether just starting or not. Kudos to the author, with this edition - especially to Jerry, who, after reading both editions I feel, did the bulk of updating.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good for introduction, but beware!
Review: The book is really useful if you are programming in a "conventional" single-processor environment and do not wish to experiment too much. As pointed out by others already, there are some GLARING errors. So if the thing does not work and the book says it should, check the DDK!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lots of good information presented well.
Review: The style is non-intrusive (an feature lacking in many technical books--if I wanted my sides split I wouldn't be reading about Windows NT). I get the impression that Mr. Baker has written a lot of drivers and burnt his fingers a number of times. I'm glad he decided to share some of these occasions with us.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: No printer driver info.
Review: There is absolutely no information about printer drivers in this book. The explanation about the printing process is so skimpy that you can't tell that it is wrong.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An Organized Introduction
Review: This book is a more concise, better organized version of the DDK documentation, minus the reference material. It does a good job of painting a picture of driver architecture and gets you familier with the terminology involved. However, it does not provide much insight or real-world tips, and in fact the regurgitation of Microsoft definitions and propoganda gets a little tiresome. This book does not go into much detail and is not a reference book. After you've read most of this book you can easily rely on the DDK documentation and never flip through these pages again.

A couple specific gripes: 1) If the reader has never written a driver before, they've probably never worked in kernel mode before, so more general information on kernel-mode programming issues would have been appreciated. 2) Though this book does not go into much detail, the forward did promise a chapter on USB and IEEE 1394 available on the book's website. I was not able to find any such chapter on the website, and haven't received a response to my email requesting the information (to be fair I've only given him a couple days).





Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A necessary guide for NT device code construction
Review: This is not a book of recipes how to build driver for this kind of driver or that other kind of driver... but all the details about the code construction and the different parts of a NT device driver were very helpful for my work. Though, I'd enjoyed more examples and more topics about the DDK library.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Error-filled and being revised
Review: While a relatively understandable introduction to the topic, it cannot serve as a reliable reference given the number of errors contained in it. Moreover, the author is working on a second edition, due at the end of the year; I can't recommend spending money on the current form.

At the time it was written, it was the only thing available and valuable for that alone; but there are better alternatives today. Get the Anthony Mason/Peter Viscarola book instead.


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