There's one drawback to Pietrek's approach, however. Secrets is almost entirely descriptive, and it sometimes leaves the reader to draw conclusions. For example, Pietrek talks about the mechanisms for locating DLL-resident routines by name or by export ordinal. He says it's more efficient to use ordinals instead of function names when establishing linkage between an .EXE and a .DLL, since no system memory is needed to store the list of names. Given that programs are often used with the wrong .DLLs in the real world, this can lead to disaster.
Secrets is an excellent scientific treatment but offers little advice on application engineering.
Windows 95 like a walnut. At a time when most Windows programmers are struggling just to stay current with the latest releases of compilers, frameworks, and third-party libraries, it's natural to ask what place an under the covers book has on our already sagging shelves. I couldn't agree more. Microsoft is largely responsible for making the creation of robust, intelligent, and accommodating 32-bit Windows programs as tough as it is. This sorry situation creates a genuine need for third-party books that fill in the gaps.