Looking for resources to learn windows

[Teancum.of.legend]

I'm 21 and am taking a degree in Computer Information Technology i have just started a job as a System Administrator for a small computer (500 computers/printers). I know my way around windows and can fix many problems. Unfortunately though my solution for a lot of things is rescue files, reformat, reload. I've always thought of this as shooting rats with a cannon. Today as I was trying to figure how to reinstall someones internet explorer because it went wonky (really can't describe it any other way) I stumbled upon this.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_ie_reinstall.htm

in which i found this command

rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %windir%\Inf\ie.inf

which solved my problem. Which lead me to wonder how anyone would discover such a command.

So after a long introduction I have come to ask how is the best way to learn how windows works. Not just how to use it but how it works. I'm hoping for a long free tutorial that will start at the basics and teach me until I can say I understand how windows works. I want to systematically learn, how dlls, the registry and everything in windows works together so i can surgically remove programs instead of nuking them. Google searches bring up lots of books and online learning classes which isn't exactly what I had in mind. I'm hoping for free resources something similar to the Linux Documentation Project but for windows. I've noticed many of great resources on this website and forums and have used msfn in the past but am not sure where to start.

So I want to use this thread as a list and the first website i would put on is of course this one. If this is the wrong place feel free to move the thread. Hopefully it makes sense what I'm trying to do and will benefit me and others

Thanks for reading.

[manikant]

Nice post Thanks.

Edited May 1, 2009 by manikant

[Tripredacus]

A lot of information about how Windows works is buried deep into MSDN. It is geared primarily towards programming for Windows and Microsoft products such as Office.

[Teancum.of.legend]

Well after googling and finding a lot of "For the price of 19.99 you will be able to learn windows is 20 Seconds!!!!" deals. The only thing I've really found that seems to be what I want is a book called Microsoft Windows Internals (4th Edition): Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. It seems to address the things i wanted to know and I can get it used on Amazon for about $30. If anyone else is interest the link is

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/073561917...;pf_rd_i=507846

Any other resources would still be greatly appreciate also anyones experience with the book would be welcom too.