Summary of Windows System Installation and Startup

Based on the previous introduction, we can summarize the following key points:

1. For a hard drive that can boot the system normally, it must contain at least two partitions: the ESP partition and the C drive.

2. The ESP partition contains two important files: the BCD file and the efi program.

3. The UEFI firmware scans the FAT32 or FAT16 ESP partition, identifies bootmgfw.efi through a specific directory structure, and displays it in the UEFI boot menu.

4. After running bootmgfw.efi, this efi program can recognize and read the BCD file located in the same directory.

5. The BCD file stores configuration information for booting each operating system. The first file executed when each Windows OS starts is winload.efi, located in \Windows\system32.

6. If the BCD file contains configuration information for only one operating system, the Windows Boot Manager interface will not display a boot menu and will directly start that OS. If the BCD contains configuration for multiple operating systems, they will all be listed in the Windows Boot Manager menu.

7. Editing the BCD menu is a complex operation. Using BOOTICE.exe can simplify this process. BOOTICE requires us to understand how to use most of its features.

However, not all systems are installed in this traditional way. There are three other system operation modes that we will explain next.