FAQ

Who are you?

We are professional software engineers who, in addition to writing code for Windows, offer training in the Windows internals, device driver, debugging, and Windows source code fields.

What seminars do you offer?

Too many to describe here! Start with the course descriptions page.

This is the first I've heard of you. Are you sure you know what you're doing?

We've literally been here since before the beginning! We have literally been writing device drivers for the Windows NT family (which of course includes Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server, and Vista) since before its first release, and for other operating systems very similar to Windows NT (specifically, Digital's VMS) for over a decade before that. Before forming Azius, we presented seminars through other companies. 

Between us, we've written over a hundred drivers and associated code for Windows (and at least that many for other operating systems), debugged hundreds of memory dump files, and trained several thousand developers and support personnel... many of them at Microsoft, and others at every major OEM in the field. They keep inviting us back, too. 

The chances are reasonably good that if you're running Windows, you're running some code we've written; it's very probable that you're running code written by someone we've trained. (If your system is bug-free, this is virtually certain!)

Wait a minute. I'm sure I took a seminar from you before, but you were working for...

That's us. Both Brian Catlin and Jamie Hanrahan formerly offered seminars through David Solomon's company, and Mark Roddy used to work for OSR. We all parted ways amicably when the right opportunities came along.

How do I know if your seminar is right for me or my company?

The course descriptions are about as detailed as we can make them here. Beyond that, please feel free to . We are happy to discuss the details of any seminar.

For private seminars (presented at your company location) we can make the seminar right for you, as we often customize seminars to clients' particular needs. For example, we can omit things you already know or that you don't need, or we can combine information from several seminars. We can even incorporate newly researched material. 

What about hands-on labs?

Nearly all of our seminars, except some of the shortest formats, are offered with hands-on labs and we strongly encourage that you take this option. We design each lab problem to incrementally introduce new material while building on and reinforcing that learned previously. At the end of the seminar, we provide complete, thoroughly-commented solutions files that can serve as starting points for your own projects.

For example, in the debugging and troubleshooting seminars we give you about ten dense pages of carefully-written tutorial material per memory dump. In our driver seminars we have you write a driver, step by step, in successive labs, and each lab begins with a fully commented and "solved" driver from the lab before. By the end of the course you receive a complete "skeleton" of a driver with all optional routines stubbed in, exhaustive debugging and monitoring features, and thorough, narrative comments -- and after you've worked through the preceding lab problems, you'll know what to do with all of those stubs, too. 

We want labs at our site, but we don't have facilities.
What can we do?

We can usually arrange to use nearby rented facilities. We vastly prefer teaching this material "with labs," so even if you don't think you can do it, please contact us. We'll help you work it out. Your people can also use their own laptops. The lab setup requirements for any of our seminars are available on request.

Someone at another training company called you "PowerPoint engineers." What was that about?

We're not certain they were talking about us... but in the words of a famous witness in English jurisprudence... well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Seriously, we make utterly no apologies for spending time on the details of our presentations. We have a tremendous amount of information and skills to impart to you, and making the slides look good is just one part of eliminating the "speed bumps" in that process.

We've done research into "how people learn" and have applied those principles to our course designs. We've even looked into obscure details like psychological responses to colors and these have influenced our design of slide backgrounds, block diagrams, and so on.

And yes, it does make a difference. If anyone believes they can present highly detailed technical information without such efforts, they are welcome to their opinion -- but we don't share it. You're our client; every part of what we do for you  should be done the best way we know how. 

Why do you list your competitors on your Resources page? Your competitors don't list you. 

Actually some of them do. As for the others, it's just that we don't lack class (or confidence).

Seriously, it's a "resources" page, and some of our competitors do cover some ground that we don't.

I'm having problems with my DPC routine...

Our apologies... but this FAQ is about Azius, the training company. Links to FAQs on driver writing and other Windows internals technologies will be here shortly. In the meantime, check our Resources page.

Do you have an online forum for technical questions and answers?

No. There are several excellent forums for these topics in the form of newsgroups. Some are public (in the comp.os... hierarchy), others are hosted by Microsoft. These are available through "Google groups," or via Outlook Express, or any of several different "news client" programs. We've provided links to these programs and to the newsgroups themselves on our "Resources" page.

Most of these newsgroups existed long before the phenomenon of "web forums" appeared, and we feel strongly that they are still the best venue for technical Q&A... as they are not associated with any of the third parties in the Windows training or consulting fields. We also feel that privately-operated "forums" have an unfortunate effect of fragmenting the reader and contributor base.

I don't want training; I just want someone to write my driver or debug my memory dump. Do you offer consulting services?

Absolutely -- but not directly through Azius. Azius LLC is completely focused on delivering seminars. For example, we'll never use your time in a seminar to try to sell you consulting services, nor leave things out of our seminars so you'll have to come back later. Our sole goal in our instructional design is to train you so that you don't need us again. This may seem like a fine point of distinction, but we feel it's better than blurring the lines between the seminar business and the consulting business.

You can enquire about consulting by contacting our instructors directly. Please see the instructors page for details and contact information.