Learn Windows Vista

First the booting sequence of Vista.

The sequence of booting Windows Vista is slightly different to any previous version of windows .

First, when the computer is switched on, either the BIOS or the EFI is loaded. In the case of a BIOS system, the MBR of the boot disk, which can be a hard drive or external media, is accessed, followed by the boot sector of the drive or of relevant hard disk partition. This boot sector then loads the rest of the boot blocks.

For Windows Vista, the boot sector loads the Windows Boot Manager (Filename:Bootmgr.) which accesses the Boot Configuration Data store and uses the information to load the final stage

Windows Boot Manager

The Windows Boot Manager reads the Boot Configuration Data and "displays an operating system selection menu"

WINLOAD.EXE

winload.exe is the operating system boot loader. It is invoked by the Windows Boot Manager in order to load the operating system kernel (ntoskrnl.exe) and (boot-class) device drivers and is in that respect functionally equivalent to (the operating system loader functionality of) NTLDR in prior versions of Windows NT.

Boot Configuration Data

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) is a database for boot-time configuration data. It replaces the boot.ini that was used by NTLDR, and is used by Microsoft's new Windows Boot Manager.

Boot Configuration Data may be altered using a command-line tool (bcdedit.exe)

Boot Configuration Data contain the menu entries that are presented by the Windows Boot Manager, just as boot.ini contained the menu entries that were presented by NTLDR.

These menu entries can include:

Options to boot Windows Vista by invoking winload.exe.
Options to resume Windows Vista from hibernation by invoking winresume.exe.
Options to boot a prior version of Windows NT by invoking its NTLDR.
Options to load and to execute a Volume Boot Record.

Lets see hardware requirements of Vista.

Minimum Requirements (Vista-Capable PCs):

* 800 MHz Intel-compatible processor
* 512MB of RAM
* DirectX 9.0-Capable Graphics Processor
* 20GB HD
Windows Vista recommended system requirements.

Home Basic

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
512 MB of system memory
20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for Direct X 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory
DVD-ROM drive

Home Premium / Business / Ultimate

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 GB of system memory
40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:

* WDDM Driver
* 128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
* Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
* 32 bits per pixel

DVD-ROM drive.