This book details the Windows 95 File System, depicting the role it plays in providing opportunities and challenges for developers. Over the course of the book, Stan Mitchell progressively strips away the layers of the Win95 File System, which reside in a component named Installable File System Manager or IFSMgr, providing the reader with information that is crucial for effective File System development. With the knowledge gained from this book, developers will have the ability to make crucial design decisions with the vast amount of new File System features.

At present, there is a dearth of information about the Windows 95 File System. Microsoft has documented the Installable File System (IFS) in the Windows 95 device driver kit, yet it lacks example programs and background information on the File System's architecture or design. Stan's book, however, takes a "hands-on" approach and, where appropriate, demonstrates ideas with example code. The reader gets a view of the File System like a building that is going up, before the floors and walls are erected and the plumbing is in clear view.

The book doesn't attempt to rebuild Windows 95 from the ground up, but it does trace through Windows 95 from the "Big Bang" to its quiescent state (Kernel idle). Armed with this background, the reader will approach examples of the Windows 95 operating system modes in the book, and examine how the File System is accessed from each of them.

This book is vital to the large audience of people who don't write device drivers for a living, but who need to know about this new File System in Win95 that, appearances aside, is quite different from what the PC world has used for the last ten years. Includes a diskette containing MULTIMON, a general-purpose monitor developed by Stan Mitchell for examining Windows internals.