Dr. Dobb's | Microsoft Acquires Winternals, Sysinternals

Microsoft Acquires Winternals, Sysinternals

Microsoft acquires kernel expertise; Russinovich becomes MS Fellow

July 18, 2006
URL:http://drdobbs.com/windows/microsoft-acquires-winternals-sysinterna/190500669

Winternals and Sysinternals, a pair of influential web sites in the Windows development community, have been acquired by Microsoft. Founded by former Dr. Dobb's columnists Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, Winternals is widely considered to be leading provider of systems recovery tools for Windows-based systems, and Sysinternals, a leading community sites for people interested Windows internals.

Russinovich will join Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division (PSD) in the role of Technical Fellow, and Cogswell will join the Core Operating Systems Division in the role of Software Architect.

Interestingly, when Russinovich and Cogswell founded their company, the company was called "NT Internals" (as in "Windows NT"). However, Microsoft objected to their use of the NT moniker and the company changed its name to Sysinternals and Winternals.

In partnership with Russinovich and Cogswell, Dr. Dobb's published a CD-ROM called "Dr. Dobb's Systems Internal CD-ROM" which included articles from Dr. Dobb's Journal, Microsoft Systems Journal, C/C++ Users Journal, and Windows Developer's Journal, along with source code, freeware, and shareware utilities for Windows. The CD-ROM has since been discontinued.

Among the ground breaking articles that Russinovich and Cogswell wrote for Dr. Dobb's are "Windows NT System-Call Hooking", "Examining the Windows NTFilesystem", and the controverisal "Inside SoftRAM 95", co-written with Andrew Schulman.