Next steps

Windows gives you many tools to use. These tools are deeply integrated into the system. Most of them are never used by applications used by users. But for us, as systems programmers, this is different. We are working closer to the metal, so it is good to know what that metal offers us.

I suggest you play with the Registry Editor and see what hidden gems you can find there. Next to that, learn WQL. Many tools offer a nice interface to the WMI, but in the end, you will have WQL strings in your application. You might as well start to learn about them.

Finally, learn Docker. Docker is a great way to package your applications and a valuable debugging tool. You can use Docker to isolate your potentially dangerous code. If things go wrong, all you need to do is delete the running container and start again. Of course, everything we discussed in this chapter is only available on Windows, so you must use Windows containers on Docker. When you are sure your code works fine, you...