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In computing, BIOS (/ ˈ b aɪ ɒ s,-oʊ s /, BY-oss, -ohss; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). [1]
It filtered interrupt 13h BIOS calls to the disk controller and directed them in the most efficient way for the system — either through the 32-bit interface with the hard disk controller or through the system BIOS. Using 32-bit Disk Access allowed for more pageable memory in Windows to page MS-DOS–based applications to disk to free enough ...
It bypassed MS-DOS and directly accessed the disk, either via the BIOS or (preferably) 32-bit disk access (Windows-native protected mode disk drivers). This feature was a backport from the then-unreleased Windows 95, as suggested by Microsoft's advertisements for Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ("the 32-bit file system from our Chicago project").
Version 3.0.0, introduced in February 2015, added a 64-bit entry point, which can coexist with the previously defined 32-bit entry point. Version 3.4.0 was released in August 2020. [8] Version 3.5.0 was released in September 2021. [9] Version 3.6.0 was released in June 2022. [10] Version 3.7.0 was released in July 2023. [11]
The main editions also can take the form of one of the following special editions: N and KN editions The features in the N and KN Editions are the same as their equivalent full versions, but do not include Windows Media Player or other Windows Media-related technologies, such as Windows Media Center and Windows DVD Maker due to limitations set by the European Union and South Korea ...
Instead, a tool is used by the OEM to embed a unique key in each computer's BIOS, making consumer versions of Windows 8 and later very difficult to pirate using the SLP insertion technique. [4] In the SLP 3.0 implementations, BIOS report the ACPI MSDM table to the operating system.
An option ROM for the PC platform (i.e. the IBM PC and derived successor computer systems) is a piece of firmware that resides in ROM on an expansion card (or stored along with the main system BIOS), which gets executed to initialize the device and (optionally) add support for the device to the BIOS.
This is a 32-bit value that is intended to identify uniquely the disk medium (as opposed to the disk unit—the two not necessarily being the same for removable hard disks). The disk signature was introduced by Windows NT version 3.5, but it is now used by several operating systems, including the Linux kernel version 2.6 and later. Linux tools ...