Windows Internals Beta Exam 71-660

Hallo Leutz,

Wieder was neues von der Beta MC* Front. Uebernaechste Woche mache ich mit Jens Steinigen zusammen die EBS Beta Pruefung (durch die ich bestimmt durchfalle), aber was soll’s, etwas Spass muss sein.

Dann habe ich mich fuer den kommenden Freitag zur 71-660 angemeldet, eine richtige Pruefung fuer Maenner um festzustellen, wieviel Ahnung von Windows Man(n) denn wirklich hat. Hier wird sich die Spreu vom Weizen trennen und ich feststellen, dass ich nur Spreu bin :-). Nein, ich hoffe natuerlich nicht, auch wenn ich mir keine grossen Chancen ausma(h)le.

Zu den Inhalten:

Skills Being Measured

This exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.  The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam.

 Identifying Architectural Components (16%)  ·         Identify memory types and mechanisms. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: nonpaged vs. paged; memory descriptor lists; physical memory vs. logical memory; address translation; heap memory.·         Identify I/O mechanisms. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Plug and play; IRQL levels; I/O request packets (IRPs); I/O manager; device stacks; filter drivers; timers·         Identify subsystems. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Object manager; cache manager; process manager; memory manager; security reference monitor·         Identify processor functions and architecture. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Interrupts; processor affinity; system service calls; 64-bit vs. 32-bit·         Identify process and threads. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Process environment block (PEB), thread environment block (TEB); thread scheduling, states and priorityDesigning Solutions (15%) ·         Optimize a system for its drivers. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: driver signing; identifying filter drivers; timers and deferred procedure calls (DPCs); system worker threads; Driver Verifier·         Design applications. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Application Verifier; gflags; kernel mode vs. user mode threads; structured exception handling (SEH); memory mapped files; authentication mechanisms; synchronization primitives·         Deploy compatible applications. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Application Verifier; Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT); gflags·         Identify optimal I/O models for applications. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: synchronous vs. asynchronous I/O; I/O completion ports; multithreaded applicationsMonitoring Windows (14%) ·         Monitor I/O latency. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Perfmon; disk I/O; application performance; device I/O·         Monitor I/O throughput. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: filter drivers; cache manager; xperf; kernrate·         Monitor memory usage. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: nonpaged vs paged pool; user memory vs. kernel memory; debugging memory leaks; memory corruption; heap corruption·         Monitor CPU utilization. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: thread time; kernel vs. user time; thread states; Perfmon; WinDbg; Xperf; Kernrate·         Monitor handled and unhandled exceptions. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Adplus; Dr Watson; Windows Error Reporting (WER); default post-mortem debuggers; exception handlingAnalyzing User Mode (18%) ·         Analyze heap leaks. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: UMDH (User-mode dump heap); user mode stack tracing; WinDbg; Application Verifier; Gflags; Perfmon·          Analyze heap corruption. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Page heap; WinDbg; Application Verifier; Gflags·         Handle leaks. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Procmon (Process Monitor); Perfmon; WinDbg; htrace; Process Explorer; Handle.exe·         Resolve image load issues. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Tlist; loader snaps; dll dependencies; application manifests; 64-bit applications vs. 32-bit applications; tasklist·         Analyze services and host processes. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: sc.exe; services; service dependencies; service isolation; services startup types; service registry entries·         Analyze cross-process application calls. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: RPC; LPC; shared memory; named pipes; process startup; winsock·         Analyze the modification of executables at runtime. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: WinDbg; image corruption; detours; hot patches·         Analyze GUI performance issues. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: spy++; message queues; Application Verifier; TraceTools; ATL Trace; Task ManagerAnalyzing Kernel Mode (19%) ·         Find and identify objects in object manager namespaces and identify the objects’ attributes. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Winobj.exe; symbolic links; object namespace; security descriptors; global namespace; device objects; file objects; object manager; semaphores·         Analyze Plug and Play (PnP) device failure. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: removal failures; global device list; WinDbg; device adds and removes; power handling·         Analyze pool corruption. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Driver Verifier; WinDbg; pool tags; Poolmon; guard pages·         Analyze pool leaks. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: WinDbg; poolmon; Driver Verifier; crash dump analysis; paged and nonpaged pool; cache trimming·         Isolate the root cause of S state failure. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: System power states and transitions; power IRP handling·         Analyze kernel mode CPU utilization. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: kernrate.exe; WinDbg; deadlocks; Performance monitoring; event tracingDebugging Windows (18%) ·         Debug memory. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: Heap; pool; virtual memory vs. physical memory; stack; analyzing crash dumps and user dumps·         Identify a pending I/O. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: WinDbg; deadlocks; I/O manager; IRP processing·         Identify a blocking thread. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: thread state; locks; synchronization objects·         Identify a runaway thread. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: thread priorities; processor affinity; Perfmon; kernrate·         Debug kernel crash dumps. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: WinDbg; DPCs; Assembler; forcing kernel crash dumps; trap processing; register usage; call stack composition (prolog/epilog); processes vs. threads·         Debug user crash dumps. o    This objective may include but is not limited to: dump types; forcing user crash dumps; gflags; system resource utilization (CPU, disk, network; memory)·         Set up the debugger.o    This objective may include but is not limited to: WinDbg; physical connection (USB, rs-232, 1394); boot.ini; bcdedit; remoting; NMI; debugging system processesNa dann, Gruss Marc

Schweden Urlaub – Kurzer Review

Hallo Leutz,

So, der Schweden Urlaub ist (fast) vorbei. Geht es wieder ans Arbeiten:
Mein persoenlicher Eindruck: Da haette ich auch zuhause bleiben koennen. Kaum eine landschaftliche Aenderung als zuhause, die schwedische Sprache versteht nicht jeder und ich auch nicht. Alle Haueser sind aus Holz, rot und sehr klein und das WC ist oft in einem extra Haueschen. So richtig lecker essen kann man(n) hier auch nicht.

Die Lebensmittel sind ca. 20-40% teurer, richtige Wurst und Vollkornbrot kennt man kaum.

Benzin ist hier noch teurer als in Deutschland (ca. 10% teurer), Alkohol auch und den gibt es kaum (nur durch staatliche Stellen und kontrollierte Ausgabe), kann man kaum bezahlen.

Der Fisch ist sehr lecker aus den kleinen Raeuchereien und auch relativ guenstig.
Wie versprochen, hier noch ein Fischbild:

image_229.jpg

Paddeln auf nem Boot was zu der Ferienwohnung gehoerte mit 3 Metern Laenge ist gefaehrlich (die Rettungsweste war bis 90 KG Koerpergewicht zugelassen und ich musste mich jedesmal einoelen um mich reinzuschiessen 🙁  ) bei Wellengang und Fische beissen auch keine an (zumindest nicht bei mir).

Wer glaubt, in Schweden Elche zu sehen, wird eines besseren belehrt. Ausser in einem “Park” habe ich keinen gesehen, obwohl ich fast 700 KM im Landesinneren war.
15 Zigarren sollten eigetlich fuer jeden der Abende reichen, wenn sie denn nicht zu billig gewesen waeren und ich 5 vernichten musste.

Jedes zweite Haus hat WLAN ohne Verschluesselung und irgendwelche Sicherheit stellte ich bei meiner Suche nach kostenpflichtigen Hotspots fest um surfen zu koennen. Wie gerne haette ich da geholfen die Sicherheit zu verbessern!

Ich habe wieder zuviel gearbeitet (zwischen 3 und 8 Stunden am Tag am Vista Buch geschrieben, an SCOM und SCCM gespielt), aber auch tagsueber einfach mal ne Stunde geschlafen, herrlich.

In Schweden bin ich auch zum Spiele Junkie geworden. Mein PDA hat nen Spiel das nennt sich Bubble Breaker, welches ich tagsueber und manchmal nachts gespielt habe (oh diese Grafik, der Sound und die Anmimationen sind echt weitaus besser als jedes C64 Spiel was ich je gespielt habe, da koennen sich moderne 3D Action Shooter bestimmt ne Scheibe dran abschneide1n – oder?)

Ohne Internet geht bei mir fast gar nichts – also ab und an mal Mails abgeholt und in die Newsgroups geschaut, aber nein ich bin nicht suechtig 🙁

Fazit: Naechstes Jahr zuhause auf dem Balkon bleiben, dann spare ich knapp 2.100 EUR oder gleich wieder nach Schottland, da weiss man(n) was man hat.

Gruss Marc

P.S.: Die Schwedinnen halten aber das was man “so hoert”