Initialization and Customization

 This includes management of your virtual memory, swap files, and the desktop options that Windows includes.  Knowing how to install and customize all versions of Windows, including 3.11. 

Windows 3.x

All versions of Windows before Windows 95 are lumped together.  It concentrates on every version of Windows from 3.0 to 3.11 as Windows 3.x.  

Windows 3.x stores all the desktop settings in the WIN.INI file.  WIN.INI also controls all file associations within Windows 3.x.  Windows 3.x arranges icons into group files.  Each group file represents a single Windows.  The group files are stored in a .grp file.  The program that manages the group files is called the File Manager .

All device drivers are listed within SYSTEM.INI, and all the standard windows on the desktop are managed by PROGRAM.INI.  HIMEM.SYS is REQUIRED in order to run Windows 3.x.  All Windows 3.x files are limited to an 8 character file name and a 3 character extension.

Installing Windows 3.x is fairly simple.  In 99% of cases, you'll be installing it over a DOS installation that configures all the hardware prior to Windows being installed.  You should defrag and scandisk the hard drive prior to installation, and use SETUP.EXE to start the installation process.  The only option to worry about is the /I switch, which bypasses the hardware detection phase of setup.  

Windows 3.x Virtual Memory

The other concept that may show up on your test is the concept of Virtual Memory.  Windows 3.x was the first consumer operating system to use virtual memory, which is essentially using Hard Drive space as RAM.  By creating a swap file on your hard drive, Windows can access your hard drive as if it was RAM, and allow you to run programs that would extend you beyond your RAM limitations.

There are 3 types of swap files in Windows 3.x.  There are temporary files, which act as straight RAM.  Then there are application swap files, which share code from applications with other applications.  The third is the Virtual Memory swap file in either temporary swap files (WIN386.SWP) or permanent swap files. (386PART.PAR)

Windows 3.x also introduces the idea of assigning memory in heaps.  Each type of program that can run on a computer uses 1 of 5 heap files that are assigned a specific amount of RAM.  The 5 heaps are;

The System Heap - For Applications And Utilities, and includes all your Virtual Memory.
The GDI Heap - For the Graphical User Interface, or GUI.  This includes fonts, the mouse, and icons displayed on the desktop.
The User Heap - The desktop layout, open and minimized windows, and all other user-oriented elements use the User Heap.
The Menu Heap - Contains the memory assignment for desktop and application menus and menu data.
The Text Heap - Contains the memory assigned for all Text-based functions.  This includes Windows Help and other text functions.

Windows 95

Windows 95 changed the way operating systems looked forever.  Although in theory it's not true, Windows 95 appears as if DOS is not running Windows, and that you must be in Windows to run DOS.  Tthe concept is pretty expansive and difficult to explain.  Just try and remember that Windows 95 is an operating system capable of running both DOS/Windows 3.x 16 bit code and Windows 95 32 bit code.  

Windows 95 also introduced the idea of Plug-And-Play to the operating system.  This is a system that allows the software code of the operating system to change the settings of the hardware from within the operating system.  PnP takes the problems involved in manually setting up hardware out of Windows, and avoids many of the troubleshooting problems that plagued Windows 3.x and DOS.  All Non-Plug-and-Play devices are called legacy cards.

Windows 95 splits the processing load into three components.  They are;

Kernel - Performs Operating System functions, including Memory and File, and I/O management, as well as application support.
User - Controls the User Interface, including the mouse, keyboard, and desktop layout.
GDI - Controls the GUI and printing functions.

Windows 95 also introduces the concept of the Virtual Machine.  The virtual machine allows programs and code written for other operating systems to run inside Windows through emulation.  Although most Virtual Machines are written to emulate DOS, there are machines to allow JAVA, UNIX, and other code to run inside Windows.  Programs that run code without a virtual machine are said to be running in Native mode, and programs that run within virtual machines are said to be running in Emulation mode.

Installing Windows 95

As opposed to Windows 3.x, Windows 95 doesn't require a DOS installation to function.  You can upgrade Windows 3.x to Windows 95, but I HIGHLY recommend NEVER doing this. 

Windows 95 uses an installation process based on log files.  DETLOG.TXT logs all hardware detected during setup, while DETCRASH.LOG records any devices that fail to respond during detection.  Finally, SETUPLOG.TXT records all the activities that occur during setup.  If setup hangs during installation, it can look at these files and skip the activities or detection processes that caused Setup to crash.

Multi-booting.  This deals with having two installed operating systems on the computer at once.  The reason that this is difficult is because most operating systems want to be the only operating system on the computer.  To have more than a single operating system on the computer, you must set the BootMulti section in the MSDOS.SYS file Options area to "BootMulti=1"