Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
4. Drivers load and the user logs on.
Networking-related components (for example,
TCP/IP) load simultaneously with other services and the
Begin Logon
prompt appears
onscreen. After a user logs on successfully, Windows updates the Last Known Good
Configuration information to reflect the current configuration state.
5. PnP detects and configures new devices.
If new devices are detected, they are as-
signed resources. Windows extracts the necessary driver files from
Driver.cab
. If the
driver files are not found, the user is prompted to provide them. Device detection oc-
curs simultaneously with the operating system logon process.
The following files are processed during startup:
•
Ntldr
•
Boot.ini
•
Bootsect.dos
(multiple-boot systems only)
•
Ntbootdd.sys
(loaded only for SCSI drives)
•
Ntoskrnl.exe
•
Hal.dll
• Files in
systemroot\System32\Config
(Registry)
• Files in
systemroot\System32\Drivers
(drivers)
Note
Ifyouseeerrormessagesduringstartuporyoursystemdoesn'tstartproperly,restartthesys-
tem, press the F8 key to open the startup menu, and select Enable Boot Logging to create a
file called
Ntbtlog.txt
Ntbtlog.txt
.Thisfile recordsevents duringstartup andcanhelpyoudetermine
which files or processes are not loading correctly.
Windows Vista/7 Startup
AlthoughMicrosoftWindowsVistaandWindows7haverootsinWindowsXPandearlier
NT-based Windows operating systems, the boot process is different in some significant
ways. Windows Vista/7 use three different components to replace
Ntldr
:
•
bootmgr.exe
bootmgr.exe
—Windows Boot Manager
•
winload.exe
winload.exe
—Windows operating system loader
•
winresume.exe
winresume.exe
—Windows resume loader
Likewise, the traditional
boot.ini
boot configuration text file used in earlier NT-based
versionsofWindowsisnowreplacedbythebootconfigurationdata(BCD)store.Theuse
