NTFS Research Articles

Windows NT security: Kudos, concerns, and prescriptions

Whether or not Microsoft's Windows NT's security capabilities are adequate is the basis for considerable controversy. Windows NT is built on a defensible security model. It also offers many security-related capabilities such as the NT File System's (NTFS's) granular permissions, the User Manager for Domains' Account Policy settings that allow control over password length, bad logon limit, and so forth, multi-tiered privilege assignment, challenge-response authentication, reasonably sophisticated auditing and others. Detractors on the other hand point to the large number of security-related vulnerabilities that have emerged in relatively few years and complain about problems such as an outdated security model, weak out-of-the-box security, weaknesses in implementation of network services and protocols, immaturity, and so forth. Rather than directly addressing this fascinating controversy, this paper enumerates areas in which improvement in security capabilities is most needed. It then recommends a strategic direction for Windows NT security, presenting suggestions such as stabilizing one release, fixing the security-related problems due to Windows NT's backward compatibility capabilities, addressing the weaknesses in networking, adhering to accepted standards more often, and others. Ultimately, however, the user community will drive whether needed changes will or will not be incorporated into future releases ofWindows NT.

The Windows NT kernel architecture

Windows NT 5.0 is a massive release, with significant new operating system and network functionality being added to many areas of the system. It is not, however, a rewrite-many aspects of the kernel system architecture remain the same or are being extended. In other words, the fundamental operating system architecture is not changing in Windows NT 5.0. The article is intended as a brief introduction to the NT architecture, including those features-notably plug and play, the job object, and 64 bit large memory support-that necessitated extensions to the executive and the kernel. The author briefly describes major new features in NT 5.0, such as the Active Directory and the Distributed Security Services. The companion articles describe major new extentions to the NT file system and the Microsoft Clustering Service.

Professional Video under 32-Bit Windows Operating Systems

The personal computer (PC) and 32-bit Windows operating systems are quickly becoming the platform of choice for professional video, film, and multimedia producers. Windows users have long benefited from the time and money savings offered by “open platform” interoperability. Professional media producers need the same opportunity to be able to buy the best interoperable tools, from an assortment of vendors, at a variety of price/performance points to meet their individual requirements. Many leading video hardware, software, and system vendors are committed to delivering video and audio editing, multimedia authoring, plug-in effects, and animation and graphics creation applications that all work together on PCs with varying performance capabilities. The goal is to let users choose all the best tools for their jobs at competitiveprices. — This paper describes a software architecture for professional video applications based on the enhanced AVI file format, the Windows NT file system (NTFS), and ActiveMovie. It also proposes a set of enhancements to ActiveMovie that will ensure that manufacturers are able to deliver interoperable, broadcast-quality production tools on 32-bit Windows PCs.