Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Also, in a multi-boot environment with multiple versions of Windows installed side by side, the F8 key can be pressed at the OS selector prompt to get to safe mode. However, under Windows 8 (released in 2012), the traditional press-F8-for-safe-mode-options UI convention no longer works, and either Shift-F8 or a special GUI-based workaround is ...
In all versions of Windows 9x except ME, it is also possible to load Windows by booting to a DOS prompt and typing "win". There are some command line switches that can be used with the WIN command: with the /D switch, Windows boots to safe mode, and with the /D:n switch, Windows boots to safe mode
The boot loader; performs basic system initialization options such as loading the hardware abstraction layer and boot-time device drivers, prior to passing control to the Windows kernel. In versions prior to Vista, NTLDR and IA64ldr also display menus to the user if multiple operating systems are defined in boot.ini, or if F8 is pressed.
The upper part is accessible only from kernel mode, and with some exceptions, is instantiated just once, system-wide. ntoskrnl.exe is mapped into this region, as are several other kernel mode components. This region also contains data used by kernel mode code, such as the kernel mode heaps and the file system cache.
It replaced the NTLDR present in older versions of Windows. The boot sector or UEFI loads the Windows Boot Manager (a file named BOOTMGR on either the system or the boot partition), accesses the Boot Configuration Data store and uses the information to load the operating system through winload.exe or winresume.exe. [2]
The Windows NT kernel is a hybrid kernel; the architecture comprises a simple kernel, hardware abstraction layer (HAL), drivers, and a range of services (collectively named Executive), which all exist in kernel mode. [1] User mode in Windows NT is made of subsystems capable of passing I/O requests to the appropriate kernel mode device drivers ...
For example, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (and their predecessors) use only two rings, with ring 0 corresponding to kernel mode and ring 3 to user mode, [7] because earlier versions of Windows NT ran on processors that supported only two protection levels. [8]
The Native API is a lightweight application programming interface (API) used by Windows NT's kernel and user mode applications. This API is used in the early stages of Windows NT startup process, when other components and APIs are still unavailable.