W

waking

In power management, the transition from a sleeping state to the working state.

WAN

Wide area network. A communications network that connects geographically separated areas.

Compare with LAN.

warm docking

A method of removing or installing a mobile system in a docking station with which the computer can be docked or undocked while in a reduced power state, such as suspend.

WDM

See Windows Driver Model.

WEP

See wired equivalent privacy.

WEP key

A wired equivalent privacy (WEP) key is a preshared key used in an 802.11 LAN for authentication or encryption, or for both.

Win32 API

A 32-bit application programming interface for Windows-based operating systems.

window turn

Turning a window refers to the process of filling an MCB with the appropriate retrieval pointers in order to map a VBN for a file to an LBN for a disk.

Windows File Protection (WFP)

A new feature of Windows 2000 and later, WFP prevents setup programs that are not part of the operating system from overwriting shared system files.

WFP protects system files (typically DLLs and EXEs) by running in the background and detecting attempts to replace protected system files.

Windows Hardware Quality Lab (WHQL)

A Microsoft group whose purpose is to ensure hardware functionality across the Windows® Family of Operating Systems.

Windows NT virtual DOS machine

A protected environment subsystem that emulates MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows within NT-based operating systems. A VDM is created whenever a user starts an MS-DOS application on an NT-based operating system.

Windows on Win32 (WOW)

A protected subsystem that runs within a VDM process. It provides a 16-bit Windows environment capable of running any number of 16-bit Windows applications on an NT-based operating system.

wired equivalent privacy

Wired equivalent privacy (WEP) is a set of security services used to protect 802.11 wireless networks from unauthorized access. WEP services prevent network intrusions that can result from unauthorized persons using hardware similar to that deployed on the protected network. Additionally, WEP services prevent the capture of wireless LAN traffic, also known as eavesdropping.

working set

The set of pages that are resident for a given process while it has one or more running threads.

The size of each process’s working set is bounded by a minimum number of pages that the Memory Manager guarantees to be resident while the process has one running thread and by a maximum. However, the NT kernel does not necessarily constrain a process’s working set to its maximum if many free pages are available.

See also balance set and quota.

WORM

Write-once, read many.

WSL

Working set list. The set of WSLEs for the current process.

WSLE

Working set list entry.