Talk:Windows Native API

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Nt and Zw functions

Are you sure the Zw functions are the actual implementations? As far as I remember it's the other way around... NegativeIQ (talk) 22:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nt functions are the actual implementation. --wj32 ^t/c 07:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See URL http://www.osronline.com/custom.cfm?name=articlePrint.cfm&id=257. It sounds like in User Mode, it doesn't matter. It Kernel Mode, The Zw variants set kernel mode and the Nt ones do not. The article currently claims there is a lookup table. The branch table article makes more sense to use, unless I'm not understanding something correctly. Anphanax (talk) 13:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Native API vs. DDI

There seemed to be some disagreement (hidden HTML comments left ages ago) in the article regarding what is and is not "Native API". It seemed someone objected to the use of the phrase "API" to describe DDIs (Device Driver Interfaces), since user-land applications don't generally call them. That said, kernel-land applications certianly call some of them. Given the API article lists "PC BIOS Call Interface" as an API, I'm inclined to think the API classification is appropriate. Thoughts? Anphanax (talk) 13:37, 13 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To me an "application" is not something that can run in kernel mode. To my knowledge you can't create a process and have its initial thread call your 'main' function in kernel mode, only in user mode. In general things in kernel mode do not run as independent "applications" but rather in response to calls from kernel mode or to things like interrupts. The fact that BIOS routines are exposed to applications in something like a DOS environment (but most certainly not under a real OS) does not seem to me to be relevant here. Jeh (talk) 07:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]