Utah High Desert Amateur Radio Club
Infrastructure › Windows & Drivers

Windows Systems, Drivers & Infrastructure

This guide focuses on Windows as an infrastructure platform rather than a consumer desktop. Topics include driver stability, networking, services, firewall behavior, automation, and system hardening for radio, SDR, and operational environments.

Infrastructure Discipline

Windows systems supporting radios or servers must prioritize predictability, controlled change, and observability over convenience or frequent updates.

Windows Core Architecture

Understanding Windows internals helps diagnose failures that would otherwise appear random or hardware-related.

Kernel & HAL

  • Windows kernel responsibilities
  • Hardware Abstraction Layer
  • Interrupt handling
Expanded Soon

Services & SCM

  • Service startup types
  • Dependency chains
  • Failure recovery actions
Expanded Soon

Scheduled Tasks

  • Triggers and conditions
  • Running as SYSTEM
  • Reliability vs startup scripts
Expanded Soon

Networking Stack & NICs

Radio and VoIP systems depend heavily on stable networking. Windows networking is feature-rich but can be fragile if misconfigured.

Network Interfaces

  • Physical vs virtual NICs
  • Driver offloading features
  • Power management pitfalls
Expanded Soon

Advanced NIC Settings

  • RSS and interrupt moderation
  • Jumbo frames
  • Link speed negotiation
Expanded Soon

IP Configuration

  • Static vs DHCP
  • Multiple gateways
  • Routing table behavior
Expanded Soon

Windows Firewall (Advanced)

Windows Firewall is stateful, rule-based, and tightly integrated into the OS. Misunderstanding it leads to intermittent failures.

Firewall Profiles

  • Domain, Private, Public
  • Profile switching behavior
  • NIC classification
Expanded Soon

Inbound vs Outbound Rules

  • Executable-based rules
  • Port-based rules
  • Service-specific filtering
Expanded Soon

Logging & Auditing

  • Dropped packet logs
  • Event Viewer correlation
  • Troubleshooting VoIP issues
Expanded Soon

PowerShell for Infrastructure

PowerShell is the primary automation and diagnostics interface for modern Windows systems.

Core Concepts

  • Objects vs text output
  • Pipelines
  • Execution policies
Expanded Soon

Networking & Services

  • Get-NetAdapter
  • Firewall cmdlets
  • Service control
Expanded Soon

Automation

  • Startup scripts
  • Error handling
  • Logging output
Expanded Soon

Command Prompt & Legacy Tools

Many diagnostic tools still rely on Command Prompt semantics.

Networking Tools

  • ipconfig
  • netstat
  • route
Expanded Soon

System Tools

  • sc.exe
  • tasklist
  • driverquery
Expanded Soon

Batch Files

  • Startup loops
  • Process monitoring
  • Compatibility scripts
Expanded Soon

Windows Server Concepts

Even client systems often benefit from server-style configuration discipline.

Server Roles

  • AD concepts
  • DNS behavior
  • Time synchronization
Expanded Soon

Remote Management

  • RDP security
  • PowerShell Remoting
  • Out-of-band access
Expanded Soon

Monitoring & Logs

  • Event Viewer structure
  • Performance counters
  • Failure diagnosis
Expanded Soon