Windows 2000/NT/Boot Files

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I have some conflicting information from two different sources.
One is the Mike Meyers book and the second is the A+ book given to me at the IT school that attended.

Basically the IT book given to me at school says that there are more files needed to boot a Windows 9x/Me computer than what the Mike Meyers books says. Could you help me I need to know who to believe because I am preparing for the 2003 A+ OS exam. And there isnt much time left the exam changes next month. Please could you help.

Professor Falken

Here is the infomation from my IT book.

NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM,BOOT.INI,BOOTSECT.DOS,NTOSKRNL.EXE,HAL.DLL,SYSTEM

Please help

 

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Go with whatever Meyers says.

 

If the book is talking about win9x/ME then there are a *completely* different set of files used to boot those.

The files you quote are part of the NT and descendants set.

Another problem is "what do you mean by 'boot'"? For a Win2k machine to come fully to the desktop hundreds of files are accessed. People will vary in what thay regard as the 'core' boot files. The list you give would cover what many would consider to be the 'core' set.

Harry.

 

i thought the three core files to boot from 2000/XP was ntloader, ntdetect and boot.ini ?

 

Yes, on an IDE disk, and ntloader is called ntldr. Also true for NT4 and NT 3.5.
On a SCSI disk you also need the driver for the disk.

 

Mike actually says something along the lines of "there are many files needed to boot a machine but the most important ones are...." (for 2000/NT/XP)

Well, in the 6th edition he does, the other book you have is probably just mentioning ones you dont need to know

 

Your IT book is correct, however, of all the files listed for Windows NT/2000/XP, only 5 files are important in the boot process: NTLDR, BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.COM, NTOSKRNL.EXE, HAL.DLL.

Here's how they work:
1] NTLDR loads first (hence the name NT LoaDeR)
2] NTLDR reads the BOOT.INI to know which OS to launch and where to find the OS files.
3] The boot menu displays and NTDETECT.COM launches
4] NTOSKRNL.EXE runs and the HAL is loaded
5] Device drivers, other OS files, drivers, services and nitty-gritty stuff are loaded and then you have the GUI.

BOOTSECT.DOS - Is needed only when multi-booting with Windows 9x/Me
NTBOOTDD.SYS - Is used only if system partition is on SCSI disk with BIOS disabled

TIP: CRAM the steps above! Remember the NT boot files and how they work on startup and the order in which they load. That helped me in correctly answering 3-4 questions in the OS exam!


As for Windows 9x/Me, I was never able to comprehend what the boot files are, since MM says that MSDOS.sys is now a text file which replaces many of the functions of Autoexec.bat & Config.sys before the OS GUI kicks in. However, IO.sys is required and HIMEM.sys is required to load the graphical part of the OS. Remember, Autoexec.bat & Config.sys were critical files needed in the DOS days. They're not important anymore. Lemme know if this helps.