Windows 95/98--BOOT SEQUENCES

The Windows 95 boot sequence is as follows:
1. POST (Power-On Self Test)
2. The Plug and Play(PnP) BIOS begins by looking at the hardware devices
on the system and figuring out which ones are PnP compliant. The BIOS
first enables the devices that are not Plug and Play, and then tries to make
the PnP devices use the leftover resources.
3. The Basic Input/Output System looks for devices (Hard Drives, Floppy
Disk, CDs) containing the Operating System (OS)
4. Master Boot Record (MBR) executes the boot record on the hard drive,
which looks for the initial hidden files of Windows 95, called IO.SYS.
5. IO.SYS loads. IO.SYS looks for CONFIG.SYS file, and, if found, the
CONFIG.SYS file executes. The CONFIG.SYS file is not required for
Windows 95.
6. IO.SYS searches for MSDOS.SYS. MSDOS.SYS is a hidden file with
settings used to customize the boot process.
7. COMMAND.COM loads.
8. AUTOEXEC.BAT.
9. The heart of Windows 95 now loads, providing a desktop from which you
can execute application software.
WINDOWS 98 BOOT SEQUENCE:
Just as with Windows 95, Windows 98 goes through a boot sequence in the
order listed above.
1. BIOS runs POST
2. BIOS loads a small DOS core
3. The DOS core loads Windows 98