Describe the booting process for a Windows system.

(1) As the hardware powers on, the BIOS begins executing from ROM and loads and executes the bootstrap loader from the disk.

(2) The NTLDR program is loaded from the root directory of the identified system device and determines which boot device contains the operating system.

(3) NTLDR loads the HAL library, kernel, and system hive. The system hive indicates the required boot drivers and loads them.

(4) Kernel execution begins by initialising the system and creating two processes: the system process containing all internal worker threads, and the first user-mode initialisation process: SMSS.

(5) SMSS further initialises the system by establishing paging files and loading device drivers.

(6) SMSS creates two processes: WINLOGON, which brings up the rest of the system, and CSRSS (the Win32 subsystem process).

The terms used in the explanation have all been explained in depth throughout previous chapters.