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The Windows NT operating system family's architecture consists of two layers (user mode and kernel mode), with many different modules within both of these layers.. The architecture of Windows NT, a line of operating systems produced and sold by Microsoft, is a layered design that consists of two main components, user mode and kernel mode.
In Windows NT operating systems, the System Idle Process contains one or more kernel threads which run when no other runnable thread can be scheduled on a CPU. In a multiprocessor system, there is one idle thread associated with each CPU core. For a system with hyperthreading enabled, there is an idle thread for each logical processor.
Kernel mode in Windows NT has full access to the hardware and system resources of the computer. The Windows NT kernel is a hybrid kernel; the architecture comprises a simple kernel, hardware abstraction layer (HAL), drivers, and a range of services (collectively named Executive), which all exist in kernel mode. [29]
A kernel is a component of a computer operating system. [1] A comparison of system kernels can provide insight into the design and architectural choices made by the developers of particular operating systems.
In most existing systems, switching from user mode to kernel mode has an associated high cost in performance. It has been measured, on the basic request getpid, to cost 1000–1500 cycles on most machines. Of these just around 100 are for the actual switch (70 from user to kernel space, and 40 back), the rest is "kernel overhead".
Windows Embedded Compact (Windows CE) is a discontinued variation of Microsoft's Windows operating system for minimalistic computers and embedded systems. Windows CE was a distinctly different kernel, rather than a trimmed-down version of desktop Windows. It is supported on Intel x86 and is compatible on MIPS, ARM, and Hitachi SuperH processors.
Windows NT processor scheduling refers to the process by which Windows NT determines which job (task) should be run on the computer processor at which time. Without scheduling, the processor would give attention to jobs based on when they arrived in the queue, which is usually not optimal.
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, [1] and then to retail in August 24, 1996, with the Server versions released to retail in September 1996.