About the Resource Guide

This guide includes the following chapters. Additional tables of contents are included in each part to help you quickly find the information you want.

Part I, About Windows NT

Chapter 1, "Windows NT Architecture," describes the architecture of Windows NT and discusses the components of its modular design.

Chapter 2, "Windows NT Security Model," describes in detail the security architecture for Windows NT. This security architecture is pervasive throughout the entire operating system, from logon security to access control for files, directories, printers, and other resources on the system.

Part II, Setting Up Windows NT

Chapter 3, "Customizing Windows NT Setup," contains a technical discussion of the Windows NT Setup program, details about setting up Windows NT on a network, and instructions for creating a custom installation and for using automated setup.

Chapter 4, "Windows NT Files," describes the purpose of each file in the Windows NT directory structure. It also provides tips for freeing hard disk space and memory by deleting components that are not essential to the operation of Windows NT.

Part III, Using Windows NT

Chapter 5, "Windows NT File Systems and Advanced Disk Management," describes the three main file systems supported by Windows NT—the file allocation table (FAT), the high-performance file system (HPFS), and the Windows NT file system (NTFS). This chapter also describes how to organize and safeguard data on disk using Windows NT disk-management techniques.

Chapter 6, "Printing," presents the components of the Windows NT printing model and describes some advanced printing features you can use.

Chapter 7, "Fonts," examines technical issues related to fonts, focusing on TrueType, the font technology available in Windows NT. This chapter also presents details about using printer fonts with specific types of printers, and using Adobe Type 1 fonts.

Chapter 8, "Microsoft Mail," presents information about the Microsoft Mail application provided with Windows NT. This chapter describes the architecture of Mail and tips for customizing Mail.

Chapter 9, "Microsoft Schedule+," presents information about the Microsoft Schedule+ application provided with Windows NT, including architecture and key features of interest to system administrators.

Part IV, Windows NT Registry

Chapter 10, "Overview of the Windows NT Registry," describes the Windows NT Registry, which replaces the configuration files used with MS-DOS® and the .INI files used with Microsoft Windows® for MS-DOS.

Chapter 11, "Registry Editor and Registry Administration," describes what Registry Editor is and how to use it, with an emphasis on protecting the Registry contents and using Registry Editor to monitor and maintain the system configuration on remote computers.

Chapter 12, "Configuration Management and the Registry," provides some examples of problem-solving tasks that involve changes made to the Registry using Registry Editor.

Chapter 13, "Initialization Files and the Registry," describes how .INI files and other configuration files are used under Windows NT and how these values are stored in the Registry.

Chapter 14, "Registry Value Entries," identifies the Registry entries that you can add or change using the Registry Editor to configure system startup, network adapter cards, device drivers, services, Mail and Schedule+, user preferences, fonts and printing, and the Windows NT subsystems.

Part V, Migration and Compatibility

Chapter 15, "Windows 3.x Compatibility," presents issues for running versions of Microsoft Windows for MS-DOS under Windows NT and describes how that subsystem is implemented.

Chapter 16, "OS/2 Compatibility," describes how to run Microsoft OS/2 1.x applications under Windows NT and also presents the related application programming interface (API) and implementation of the OS/2® subsystem.

Chapter 17, "POSIX Compatibility," describes how to run POSIX applications and also presents information about POSIX conformance and the implementation of this subsystem under Windows NT.

Part VI, Troubleshooting

Chapter 18, "Troubleshooting," provides specific information for troubleshooting problems, showing the key steps for isolating and solving common problems with software and hardware under Windows NT.

Part VII, Appendixes

Appendix A, "Windows NT Resource Directory," provides a list of resources for product support, training, and consulting for Windows NT, plus information about related Microsoft Press books and the Windows NT Driver Library.

Appendix B, "Windows NT User Rights," describes the advanced user rights defined by Windows NT.

Appendix C, "International Considerations," describes Unicode™ support in Windows NT, plus information about supported locales, code pages, and national language support (NLS) information for the subsystems.

Appendix D, "Hardware Compatibility List," presents a list of the tested hardware that is compatible with Windows NT, including microprocessors, small computer system interface (SCSI) adapters and drives, disk controllers, video displays, network adapters, audio adapters, modems, pointing devices, uninterruptible power supplies, keyboards, and printers.

The Glossary presents a rich set of definitions for the technical terms that appear in the Windows NT Resource Guide and the Windows NT Networking Guide.