Related Research Articles
In computer data storage, drive letter assignment is the process of assigning alphabetical identifiers to volumes. Unlike the concept of UNIX mount points, where volumes are named and located arbitrarily in a single hierarchical namespace, drive letter assignment allows multiple highest-level namespaces. Drive letter assignment is thus a process of using letters to name the roots of the "forest" representing the file system; each volume holds an independent "tree".
In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory directly addressable by the processor for use by the operating system and application programs. As memory prices rapidly declined, this design decision became a limitation in the use of large memory capacities until the introduction of operating systems and processors that made it irrelevant.
Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subsequent versions. The first version in the 9x series was Windows 95, which was succeeded by Windows 98 and then Windows Me, which was the third and last version of Windows on the 9x line, until the series was superseded by Windows XP.
CONFIG.SYS is the primary configuration file for the DOS and OS/2 operating systems. It is a special ASCII text file that contains user-accessible setup or configuration directives evaluated by the operating system's DOS BIOS during boot. CONFIG.SYS was introduced with DOS 2.0.
Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager (QEMM) is a memory manager produced by Quarterdeck Office Systems in the late 1980s through the late 1990s. It was the most popular third-party memory manager for the MS-DOS and other DOS operating systems.
AUTOEXEC.BAT is a system file that was originally on DOS-type operating systems. It is a plain-text batch file in the root directory of the boot device. The name of the file is an abbreviation of "automatic execution", which describes its function in automatically executing commands on system startup; the filename was coined in response to the 8.3 filename limitations of the FAT file system family.
In DOS memory management, the upper memory area (UMA) is the memory between the addresses of 640 KB and 1024 KB (0xA0000–0xFFFFF) in an IBM PC or compatible. IBM reserved the uppermost 384 KB of the 8088 CPU's 1024 KB address space for BIOS ROM, Video BIOS, Option ROMs, video RAM, RAM on peripherals, memory-mapped I/O, and obsoleted ROM BASIC.
A disk compression software utility increases the amount of information that can be stored on a hard disk drive of given size. Unlike a file compression utility, which compresses only specified files—and which requires the user to designate the files to be compressed—an on-the-fly disk compression utility works automatically through resident software without the user needing to be aware of its existence. On-the-fly disk compression is therefore also known as transparent, real-time or online disk compression.
DriveSpace is a disk compression utility supplied with MS-DOS starting from version 6.0 in 1993 and ending in 2000 with the release of Windows Me. The purpose of DriveSpace is to increase the amount of data the user could store on disks by transparently compressing and decompressing data on-the-fly. It is primarily intended for use with hard drives, but use for floppy disks is also supported. This feature was removed in Windows XP and later.
In computing, FASTOPEN is a DOS terminate-and-stay-resident command, introduced in MS-DOS version 3.3, that provides accelerated access to frequently-used files and directories. The command is also available in SISNE plus.
HIMEM.SYS is a DOS device driver which allows DOS programs to store data in extended memory according to the Extended Memory Specification (XMS). The memory beyond the first 1 MB of address space is required by Windows 9x/Me in order to load; therefore, these versions of Microsoft Windows require HIMEM.SYS to be loaded to be able to run.
Microsoft Drive Optimizer is a utility in Microsoft Windows designed to increase data access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique called defragmentation. Defragmenting a disk minimizes head travel, which reduces the time it takes to read files from and write files to the disk. As a result of the decreased read and write times, Microsoft Drive Optimizer decreases system startup times for systems starting from magnetic storage devices such as a hard drive. However, defragmentation is not helpful on storage devices such as solid state drives, USB drives or SD cards that use flash memory to increase speeds, as these drives do not use a head. Defragmentation may decrease lifespan for certain technologies, e.g. solid state drives. Microsoft Drive Optimizer was first officially shipped with Windows XP.
.sys is a filename extension used in MS-DOS applications and Microsoft Windows operating systems. They are system files that contain device drivers or hardware configurations for the system.
The booting process of Microsoft Windows varies between different releases.
MSCDEX or Microsoft CD-ROM Extensions is a software program produced by Microsoft and included with MS-DOS 6.x and certain versions of Windows to provide CD-ROM support. Earlier versions of MSCDEX since 1986 were installable add-ons for MS-DOS 3.1 and higher.
In computing, LOADHIGH is an internal DOS command in COMMAND.COM that is used to load a program into the upper memory area (UMA) instead of conventional memory.
DOS is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible systems from other manufacturers include DR-DOS (1988), ROM-DOS (1989), PTS-DOS (1993), and FreeDOS (1998). MS-DOS dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995.
The Windows 9x series of operating systems refers to the monolithic kernel which powers these operating systems. The basic code is similar in function to MS-DOS. As a 16-/32-bit hybrid, it requires support from MS-DOS to operate.
DOS Protected Mode Services (DPMS) is a set of extended DOS memory management services to allow DPMS-enabled DOS drivers to load and execute in extended memory and protected mode.
References
- 1 2 3 "SMARTDrive Version History (Revision 2.1)". Support. Microsoft. 7 July 2005. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
- 1 2 3 "SMARTDrive and 32-Bit Disk Access (revision 1.1)". Support. Microsoft. 16 November 2006. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
- ↑ "How to start the Setup program from MS-DOS in Windows XP (revision 6.0)". Support (5.5 ed.). Microsoft. 22 May 2013. Archived from the original on 7 January 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2013.