Microsoft Windows Operating System 1

Question 1

This is considered the core software of the OS. It controls the execution of the processors. This manages thread scheduling, process switching, exception and interrupt handling, and multiprocessor synchronization. Note that the …’s own code does not run in threads

Answer 1

Windows Kernel

Question 2

This isolates the OS from platform-specific hardware variances. It makes each computer’s system bus, direct memory access (DMA) controller, interrupt controller, system timers, and memory controller look the same to the Windows Executive and Kernel components

Answer 2

Hardware abstraction layer (HAL)

Question 3

These are dynamic libraries that extent the functionality of the Windows Executive. These include hardware device drivers that translate users I/O function calls into specific hardware device I/O request, and software components implementing file systems, network protocols, and any other system extensions that need to run in kernel-mode

Answer 3

Device drivers

Question 4

This implements the graphical user interface (GUI), such as the user interface controls and illustrations

Answer 4

Windowing and graphing system

Question 5

These include user-mode services such as the session manager, the authentication subsystem, the service manager, and the log-on process

Answer 5

Special system processes

Question 6

These involve services used by both Microsoft and other external software developers to extent system functionality and run background user-mode activity on a Windows system

Answer 6

Services processes

Question 7

These provide different operating system environments and support Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and Win32 subsystems. Each environment subsystems contains processes shared among all applications

Answer 7

Environment subsystems

Question 8

These include executable (EXE) programs and dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that provide the functionality a user needs to make user of a system

Answer 8

User applications