Windows NT Redirector

The redirector is the component through which one computer gains access to another computer. The Windows NT redirector allows connection to other Windows NT computers as well as to LAN Manager, LAN Server, and MS-Net servers. This redirector communicates to the protocol stacks to which it is bound via the TDI. Because network connections are not entirely reliable, it is up to the redirector to reestablish connections when they go down.

As illustrated by Figure 1.8, when a process on a Windows NT workstation tries to open a file on a remote computer, these steps occur:

1. The process calls the I/O Manager, asking for the file to be opened.
2. The I/O Manager recognizes that the request is for a file on a remote computer, so it passes it to the redirector file system driver.
3. The redirector passes the request to lower-level network drivers, which transmit it to the remote server for processing.

Figure 1.8 Client-Side Processing Using the Redirector