Windows Essentials

Dr. Parag R. Kaveri

 Course Outline:

Sr.No. Topics Hours

1 Windows Architecture 4

2 Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) 5

3 Windows Registry, Directory Structure 6

4 User Management 4

5 Introduction to file system 6

6 Introduction to Batch Scripting 5

Total 30
 Windows OS
• History
• Design Principles
• System Components
• Environmental Subsystems
• File system
• Networking
• Programmer Interface
 Windows
• 32-bit/64-bit preemptive multitasking operating system
for Intel and AMD microprocessors
• Key goals for the system:
– security
– reliability
– extensibility
– portability
– international support
– energy efficiency
– dynamic device support

• Supports multiple OS personalities using user-mode

subsystems
• Windows is for desktops and for Servers which uses the
same internals as 64-bit Windows, but with added
features for servers.
 History
• MS-DOS - Microsoft Disk Operating System (1981)
• Windows 1.0 – 2.0 (1985-1992)
• Windows 3.0 – 3.1 (1990–1994)
• Windows 95 (August 1995)
• Windows 98 (June 1998)
• Windows ME - Millennium Edition (September 2000)
• Windows NT 3.1 (1993-1996)
• Windows 2000 (February 2000)
• Windows XP (October 2001)
• Windows Vista (November 2006)
• Windows 7 (October, 2009)
• Windows 8 – (2012)
• Windows 10 (2015)
• Windows Server (March 2003)
• Windows Home Server (January 2007)
• Windows Mobile (April 2000)
• Windows Phone (November 2010)
Market Share
Till 2017
 The Three Elements of an OS
• User Interface – The part of the OS that you
interface with.
• Kernel – The core of the OS. Interacts with the
BIOS (at one end), and the UI (at the other end).
• File Management System – Organizes and
manages files.
 Operating System Functions
• File Management

• Application Management

• Built-in Utility Programs

• Control of Computer Hardware

 Operating System Types
• Multiuser – Two or more users work with the
computer at the same time
• Multitasking – Two or more processes running
at the same time.
• Multithreading – Two or more parts of the
same process running at the same time.
How a Modern Computer Works
Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture
A Dual-Core Design
 Windows Architecture
Layered system of modules
• Protected mode — hardware abstraction layer (HAL), kernel,
executive.
– Executive includes file systems, network stack, and device
drivers.
• User mode — collection of subsystems, services, DLLs, and
the GUI
– Environmental Subsystems
– Security functions
– Windows services for networking, device interfaces, background
execution, and extension of the system
– Rich shared libraries with thousands of APIs are implemented
using DLLs to allow code sharing and simplify updates
– A graphical user interface is built into Win32 and used by most
programs that interact directly with the user
 Depiction of Windows Architecture

VDM : Virtual desktop manager

POSIX : The Portable Operating System Interface
• Hardware Abstraction layer
• Kernel
• Executive Services
• Environment Subsystem
Modes of Windows operating system
• Protected mode/Kernel mode — HAL,
kernel, executive.
• kernel mode has unrestricted access to
the system memory and external
devices
• User mode — collection of subsystems
• User mode has limited in term of
system resources they have access
 Hardware Abstraction Layer
 It is a layer of software or programming that
hides (Abstraction) the hardware differences
from the operating system.
 This allows Windows to be portable from one
hardware platform to another.
 The HAL consists of a series of function that hides
orabstract differences between hardware platforms.
Kernel
 Windows Kernel is known as hybrid kernel.
 The Kernel works very closely with the HAL
 It schedules the activities to be performed by the CPU.
 kernel synchronizes activity among processors to
optimize performance.
 kernel mode stops user mode services and applications
from accessing critical areas of the operating system
that should not have access to.
 Kernel mode drivers exist in three levels.
 Highest level drivers
 Intermediate level drivers
 Low level drivers
 Kernel
• Foundation for the executive and the
subsystems
• Kernel is object-oriented, uses two sets of
objects
– dispatcher objects control dispatching and
synchronization (events, threads and timers)
– control objects (asynchronous procedure calls,
interrupts, power notify, process and profile
objects)
Microkernel
• The Microkernel is a collection of programs that
can provide tasks such as address space
management, thread management and
inter-process communication (IPC).
The Microkernel along with the Windows kernel to
make the operating system workefficiently.
 ExecutiveServices
• The Executive Services, which includes the
kernel and the HAL, provides a set of common
services that the user can use. This section
interacts with Input/output devices, object
management, process management and
the system security.
• Each group of services is managed by one of
the components of the executive services,
which areas follows:
 Depiction of Windows Architecture

VDM : Virtual desktop manager

POSIX : The Portable Operating System Interface
 Object Manger
 Power Manger
 Process Manager
 I/O Manager
 Virtual memory management
 Local Procedure Call Facility
 Cache Manager
 Security Reference Monitor
 Plug and Play Monitor
 Device Drive Manager
Object Manager
The Object Manager provides rules for retention,
naming and security of objects. Objectscan be, for
example, files and folders saved in the file system. It
also removes the duplicate objectresources.

Creation and insertion of objects can be done in this

section.
Objects are manipulated by a standard set of methods,
namely create, open, close, delete, query name and
security
Power Manger
 The Power Manger deals with power events like
power-off, stand-by, and hibernate. Windows
supports all of the latest standards in Power
Management including the Advanced Power
Management (AMP) and Advanced
Configuration and PowerInterface (ACPI).
 Consequently, network devices can be powered
off when not in use and dynamically reactivated
when network access is required.
 Check network security.
 Process Manager
The Process Manager manages the creation and
deletion of processes. It provides a standard set of
services for creating and using processes

Process is started via the Create Process routine

which loads any dynamic link libraries that are used by
the process, and creates a primary thread

Every dynamic link library or executable file that is

loaded into the address space of a process is identified
by an instance handle
 I/O Manager
The I/O Manager manages all the input and
output for the operating system. It supports all
file system drivers, hardware device drivers and
network drivers, . The I/O Manager provides a
common interface that all drivers, such as FAT file
system driver. This allows the I/O Manager to
communicate with all drivers in the same way,
without any knowledge of how the devices they
control actually work.
 Virtual memory management
• Helps to manage virtual memory for the
system performance
 Local Procedure CallFacility
The executive system implements a message
passing facility called a Local Procedure Call
(LPC). Applications communicate with the
environment subsystems by passing messages via
the LPC facility.
CacheManager
The Cache Manager is a part of the I/O architecture. It
handles caching for the entire I/O system. Caching is
used to improve the performance of the I/O systems.
Instead of reading and writing directly to disk,
frequently used files are temporarily stored in a cache in
memory, and read and write operations are performed to
these files in the memory.
 Security ReferenceMonitor
The Security Reference Monitor (SRM) is
responsible for enforcing the access validation and
audit-generation policy defined by the local security
subsystem.
 Plug and PlayManager

Plug and Play, which made its first appearance

with Microsoft Windows 95, is now a feature of
Windows. Changes have been made within the
system architecture of Windows to accommodate
this facility.
DeviceManager
Device Manager allows you to check the status of
your hardware devices and to update device drivers
for the hardware installed on yourcomputer.
Environment subsystem
 Environment subsystem
Environment subsystem allow Window to run
application written for different operating system. The
environment subsystem accept the API call made by the
application, convert the API call into a format that is
understood by Window, and then pass the converted API to
executive components running in Kernel mode.

Main three environment subsystem

The Win32 subsystem
An OS/2 subsystem
POSIX subsystem
The Win32
The main subsystem in windows is Win32. It controls 32
based application and provides an environment for
Win16 and Microsoft MS-DOS based application.

The OS/2
During the early development of window, the
window environment become the default. Consequently
window provided only limited facilities in the os/2
environment subsystem. OS/2 1.x character based
application run on only on Window on Intel86computer.
Real code OS/2 can run on all platform using MS-DOS
environment.
POSIX (The Portable Operating System
Interface )
Developed by IEEE to ensure portability of
application across different platform.
The POSIX subsystem is designed to run POSIX
application following the POSIX.1 standard which is
based on the UNIX model. POSIX application can be
started by the window 32subsystem.
These subsystem run at low priority than Kernel mode
process.
It have less access to CPU cycles than process that run
in kernel mode.
Integral subsystem
 Integral subsystem perform essential operating
system function.
 Security
 Creates security token and rights. Permission to
user account.
 Accept user login request and initiates
authentication.
 Workstation services
 The workstation services allow a Windows
computer to access the network.
 Provide an API to access the network redirection
 Case Study
• Compare Desktop OS with Online OS
• In terms of Architecture
• Features

– https://www.os-js.org/
– tour.ubuntu.com