Windows NT Startup Process - Kernel Loading Phase

Kernel Loading Phase

  1. ntoskrnl.exe (the kernel)
  2. hal.dll (type of hardware abstraction layer)
  3. kdcom.dll (Kernel Debugger HW Extension DLL)
  4. bootvid.dll (for the windows logo and side-scrolling bar)
  5. config\system registry
    1. HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\BootExecute
    2. Process services in the order provided
    3. *HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder

The initialization of the kernel subsystem and the Windows Executive subsystems is done in two phases.

During the first phase, basic internal memory structures are created, and each CPU's interrupt controller is initialized. The memory manager is initialized, creating areas for the file system cache, paged and non-paged pools of memory. The Object Manager, initial security token for assignment to the first process on the system, and the Process Manager itself. The System idle process as well as the System process are created at this point.

The second phase involves initializing the device drivers which were identified by NTLDR as being system drivers.

Through the process of loading device drivers, a "progress bar" is visible at the bottom of the display on Windows 2000 systems; in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, this was replaced by an animated bar which does not represent actual progress. Prior to Windows XP, this part of the boot process took significantly longer; this is because the drivers would be initialized one at a time. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the drivers are all initialized asynchronously.

Read more about this topic:  Windows NT Startup Process

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