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An INI file is a configuration file for computer software that consists of plain text with a structure and syntax comprising key–value pairs organized in sections. [1] The name of these configuration files comes from the filename extension INI, short for initialization, used in the MS-DOS operating system which popularized this method of software configuration.
Prior to the Windows Registry, .INI files stored each program's settings as a text file or binary file, often located in a shared location that did not provide user-specific settings in a multi-user scenario. By contrast, the Windows Registry stores all application settings in one logical repository (but also in a number of discrete files) and ...
WIN.INI is a basic INI file that was used in versions of the Microsoft Windows operating environment up to Windows 3.11 to store basic settings at boot time. By default, all font, communications drivers, wallpaper, screen saver, and language settings were stored in WIN.INI by Windows 3.x.
SYSTEM.INI is an initialization (INI file) used in early versions of Microsoft Windows (from 1.01 up to Me) to load device drivers and the default Windows shell (Program Manager or Windows Explorer), among other system settings.
Registry and other configuration files: SYSTEM.DAT, USER.DAT - Contains the Windows Registry; MSDOS.SYS - Contains some low-level boot settings and resources such as disabling double-buffering and the GUI logo; WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI - Configuration files from Windows 3.1 which are processed in Windows 9x also
When a user is logging on to Windows, the startup sound is played, the shell (usually EXPLORER.EXE) is loaded from the [boot] section of the SYSTEM.INI file, and startup items are loaded. In all versions of Windows 9x except ME, it is also possible to load Windows by booting to a DOS prompt and typing "win". There are some command line switches ...
This was a plain text file with simple key–value pairs (e.g. DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS) until MS-DOS 6, which introduced an INI-file style format. There was also a standard plain text batch file named AUTOEXEC.BAT that ran a series of commands on boot. Both these files were retained up to Windows 98SE, which still ran on top of MS-DOS.
The structure of an INF file is very similar to that of an INI file; it contains various sections that specify the files to be copied, changes to the registry, etc.All INF files contain a [Version] section with a Signature key–value pair specifying the version of Windows that the INF file is meant for.