The document discusses various topics related to file systems, partitions, and the Windows boot process. It describes the FAT and NTFS file systems, how partitions and volumes are used to organize disk space, and the steps involved in booting Windows, including the roles of the boot loader, kernel, and services.

12. System Requirements Windows XP Windows Vista Linux Mac OS Processor 300 MHz 800 MHz 500 MHz IBM and Motorola Systems Memory 128MB 512MB 256MB Hard Disk 1.5GB of available disk space 20GB with 15GB of free space 800MB CPU Support Single or Dual CPU Single or Dual CPU Display Super VGA or better DirectX 9.0 capable 800 x 600 display

13. The architecture

15. Attended Installations of Windows Attended installations are installations that you attend, or sit through, and answer all the questions that the setup program asks. The Windows attended installation is broken down into three major phases: ✦ Setup loader: is initiated by calling winnt.exe or winnt32.exe or by booting from the Windows 2000/XP CD-ROM. This phase copies setupldr, which is a mini-version of ntldr used by the setup program, and copies to the hard drive any files that the Windows setup utility needs. ✦ Text-mode phase: is typically identified by the text-based environment that has a blue background. It is responsible for detecting basic hardware components such as CPU, motherboard, and hard drives.

16. Cont’d … This phase also creates the Registry, partitions and formats the drives, creates the file systems, and verifies that you have enough hard disk space to complete the installation. After the setup verifies that you have enough hard disk space, it copies files that are needed by the setup program to the hard disk. ✦ GUI-mode phase: After the text-mode portion of the install, the system restarts and moves into the GUI-mode phase. This phase of the setup can be quickly identified by the use of a wizard and it’s Windows-like shell. The wizard asks questions; you answer each question and click Next to go to the next question. This phase of the setup detects additional devices, installs drivers for those devices, and copies additional necessary setup files that weren’t copied during the text-mode phase. During this phase, you are asked for information, such as your name, your organization, and your product key for the Windows operating system, and you are asked to agree to the end-user licensing agreement (EULA).

20. Cont’d ntdetect.com The next step after having chosen Windows XP from the boot.ini menu is to have ntdetect.com run. only job is to find out what hardware is present on the system. It is similar to what happens during the POST process at the hardware level. ntdetect.com checks for the following components: ✦ Bus/adapter type ✦ Communication ports ✦ Computer ID ✦ Floating-point coprocessor ✦ Floppy disks ✦ Keyboard ✦ Mouse/pointing device ✦ Parallel ports ✦ SCSI adapters ✦ Video adapters This information creates a hardware tree that is passed back to ntldr and eventually given to ntoskrnl.exe, which places it in the Registry.

23. The basic file attributes All files on your computer, regardless of your Microsoft operating system or file system, have these four basic attributes: ✦ Read-only:- Files with this attribute cannot be deleted from the command line and cannot be written to or saved over. ✦ Hidden:- These files are not visible to users unless those users have changed their viewing options to display hidden files. ✦ System:- System files are flagged as being required by the operating system. They cannot have their attributes changed by the attrib.exe command. ✦ Archive:- Files with the archive attribute are ready for archiving or backing up. This attribute is used by some backup programs so that they can perform incremental backups.