good books for beginning windows programming?

[jinjin12]

ok i recently got malware and found out that my malware scanner took forever to scan because the malware downloaded a bunch of files into my local service and network service folders. i had no ideas that these system protected folders existed. in light of this new found ignorance, i now want to learn more about windows, from the basics functions of what certain things do to the more programmer specific stuff.

i'm normally a ubuntu user. i first read the "ubuntu pocket guide" to learn more about ubuntu and how everything functions in general. then i read "Understanding UNIX/LINUX Programming: A Guide to Theory and Practice" to get the more programming specific things.


are there are good books that are the windows equivalent of the two book i mentioned above? basically one good book to get a general understand of how windows works and another for programming specific things. any recommendations?

[ResidentBiscuit]

http://www.charlespetzold.com/pw5/

This is what usually is recommended as the de facto book to read for windows programming.

[jinjin12]

thanks for the book but i have to ask, is this book still viable? because it's very old.

[ResidentBiscuit]

The Win32 API is very old itself. I personally haven't read it, but I've been recommended it before and I asked about the age also and supposedly it's still the recommended book.

[z05DSL3A]

Windows via C/C++
by Jeffrey Richter and Christophe Nasarre

If you want to know what is going on...
Windows Internals
by Mark E. Russinovich et al

[jimobama]

I have write on the winAPI, it need complete time for deep understand why not go for powerful API's like widgets,QT or MFC

[freddie1]

I have write on the winAPI, it need complete time for deep understand why not go for powerful API's like widgets,QT or MFC

Maybe because when 'widgets,QT or MFC' have been relagated to the dustbin of history, the Win Api will still be going strong?

[z05DSL3A]

Maybe because when 'widgets,QT or MFC' have been relagated to the dustbin of history, the Win Api will still be going strong?

or so you know what to do when they don't do it for you.

[jimobama]

Maybe because when 'widgets,QT or MFC' have been relagated to the dustbin of history, the Win Api will still be going strong?

They make work easy for you, MFC ,QT are improving everytime , it will be very foolish to re-invert the wheel while writing a large project.