The Windows Xp Operating System Computer Science Essay
Windows XP is one of the most accessible versions of any Microsoft operating system. It is built on the Windows NT kernel and architecture and it is the first consumer-oriented operating system. Thus, this paper is a study of Windows XP and Linux will be used to compare with Windows XP, owing to that Linux is an operating system that can be installed on a variety of computer hardware and there are over 3,200 developer from 200 companies contributed to the Linux kernel. We organize the content into three chapters which show as below:
Microsoft Windows XP is the short for Windows “eXPerience”. Windows XP was being planned since the Windows 2000 is under development. It was then officially launched in New York City as Windows XP Operating System in October 25, 2001. It is released with a redesigned look and it is available in 25 languages. Windows XP had improved visuals, memory management, as well as security to the computer. 17million of Windows XP copies was sold out in a short time of 2 months and more than 200 million of copies then sold in 2 year.
Windows XP was originally brought in to be an OS which would combine the best features of the newest business OS, Windows 2000, and Windows 98 Second Edition (SE). Windows XP is designed to help users who may not be familiar with previous Windows OS features and it also comes with a couple of new abilities to ease the use of Windows XP for those users. It includes a series of new features which is not found in the old versions of Microsoft Windows OS such as Internet Explorer 6, customizable new interface, automatically updates from the internet, and multilingual support which support different languages.
Intended for computers that are part of a corporate network, for the majority of computers on small networks, and for home users who need certain advanced capabilities. With a brand new visual design, it has the features for business and advanced home computing, including remote desktop support, system restore and advanced networking features
Windows XP requires a CPU with at least 233MHz with a choice of Intel Pentium / Celeron processor or AMD K6 / Athlon / Duron processor, while the recommended CPU clock speed is 300MHz. The recommended RAM is 128MB and the minimum RAM is 64MB. The installation of Windows XP will need to consume at least 1.5 GB of hard disk space. An optical drive, a display monitor with at least 800 x 600 resolutions, a keyboard and a mouse are also needed to navigate through the whole installation process. The hardware requirements for Windows XP are summarized in the table below:
Clock Speed
300MHz (Recommended)
233MHz (Minimum)
Processor
Intel Pentium/Celeron,
AMD K6/Athlon/Duron or
compatible
RAM
128MB (Recommended)
64MB (Minimum)
Hard Disk Space
1.5GB
ROM
CD/DVD Drive
Video Adapter
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution
I/O Devices
Compatible keyboard & mouse
Table 3 System Requirement
1.3 Compare the Memory Management with Linux
Memory management is one of the importance cores of the operating system, especially the management of main memory. Virtual memory is one of the solutions that developed to overcome the need of memory. Below is the comparison of the memory management between Windows XP and Linux.
There are few thing that will be compared in this section, they are:
Virtual size
Address translation
The detail of memory management about Windows XP will be descripted in the analysis of memory management.
A table of comparison between Windows XP and Linux will be illustrated as below
The difference about memory management between Windows XP and Linux will be carried out in this section (Solomon & Russinovich, 2006).
Windows XP
LINUX
32bit version split user-mode and kernel mode from 2GB /2GB to 3GB/1GB
split user-mode and kernel mode 3GB/1GB
Linux 2.6 has 4/4 split option where the kernel has its own address space.
Demand-paged virtual memory
32 or 64 bit
Copy-on-write
Share memory
Memory mapped files
Demand-paged virtual memory
32 or 64 bit
Copy-on-write
Share memory
Memory mapped files
Two-level hierarchical memory map
Page directory table
Page directory entries (PDEs) point to page table
One page directory table per process
Page table
Page table entries (PTEs) point to page frame
Using TLB (Translation Look-aside Buffer) to accelerates address translation.
Three level of page tables to handle 64bit addresses.
Page global directory
Page middle directory
Page table
On x86 processors
Only a two-level page table is actually used. That is page table and page middle directory which contains exactly one entry.
Paging is supported in hardware
TLB is provided as well
Table 4 Compare Memory Management Windows XP and Linux
Figure 2 Linux Virtual Address Translation
Figure 3 Windows XP Virtual Address Translation
Chapter 2: Installation
2.1 Installation Steps
Insert the Windows XP installation CD into the CD- ROM/DVD-ROM.
Set the first boot device as the CD-ROM. The Boot Menu can be access by pressing the “F10” key during boot up for newer model of PC or laptop or manually configure the first boot device in the BIOS.
Restart the computer and it will now boot from the CD-ROM. Upon successful loading from the CD-ROM, a screen will appear as Figure 4. Strike any key to initialize the installation process.
Figure 4 Steps 3
The installation of Windows XP will commence. The 1st part of the installation is command-based while the later portion is GUI-based. The bottom of the installation screen will provide command keys that we will be using to interact with the system throughout the installation.
Figure 5
Figure 5 display a welcome screen with the option to set up a new Windows XP, to repair a Windows XP installation or to quit the setup without installation. Hit the “ENTER” key to proceed with the installation.
The next screen as shown in Figure 6 is the Windows XP License Agreement page. Hit “F8” to agree and continue with the installation or “ESC” key to cancel the installation process or “PAGE DOWN” key to view the next page of the license agreement.
Figure 6
The next step, Windows will search for any existing Windows installed in the system. If there are other versions of Windows installed, Figure 7 will appear. The option available from here on either to repair the previously installed Windows or to install a fresh new copy of the Windows.
Figure 7
If there are no Windows installed previously in the system, it will display Figure 8. In this step, it will display all available hard drives in the system. There are three options to select, the first is to setup a new Windows in the selected drive, the second is to create a partition on the selected drive and the final option is to delete the selected partition.
Figure 8
Remove any previously created partition by pressing “D” or create new partition by pressing “C”. Select the partition in which Windows XP will be installed and press “ENTER” to proceed to the next screen.
Figure 9In Figure 9, the partition selected has to be formatted with the available file system listed. The recommended file system for Windows XP is NTFS (New Technology File System). To perform a quick format, select “Format the partition using the NTFS file system (Quick)” and hit the “ENTER” key. In the next few moments, the partition will be formatted and be installed with Windows XP file system (Figure 10).
Figure 10
Upon completing the above, the system will restart automatically. The screen in Figure 3 will appear again this time, but DO NOT hit any key as this will only take you through the whole process starting from step 5 to 10 but wait instead until Figure 11 appear.
Figure 11
Installation continues after Figure 12, and the approximate time of completion is 30 – 45 minutes. After some time, Figure 11 will appear requesting for customization of region and language options. If there is no customization needed, click on the “Next” button to proceed.
Figure 12
Figure 13 requires the information of the name and the organization. Upon completing, click “Next” to proceed to the next screen.
Figure 13
Figure 14 requires the Windows XP license number to be input. Click “Next” upon completion.
Figure 14
The next screen (Figure 15) request of the computer name and password if needed. Click “Next” after filling up the necessary field.
Figure 15
This screen (Figure 16) request of the time zone of the installed system. Upon clicking “Next”, the installation will continue.
Figure 16
After 10 minutes later, a screen on networking settings will appear (Figure 17). If there are any info to configure, select “Custom settings” and configure the networking components. If there are none, select “Typical settings” and click “Next” to complete the installation,
Figure 17
Once Figure 18 appears, this marks the completion of Windows XP installation. Click “Next” to setup the computer and create user accounts. When the computer request to activate Windows, select “Skip” and select “No” when asked to register with Microsoft website. Doing so is to prevent virus to enter into the system as there is no antivirus software installed.
Figure 18
Chapter 3: Analysis
3.1 User Interface
A user interface is an intersection between user and the OS. While an interface is a set of commands or menus which user can use it to communicate with the OS. Generally, there are two fundamental methods allow users to communicate with the operating system. They are CLI and GUI which will be descripted later in this section.
3.1.1 CLI (Command Line Interface/Command Interpreter)
Main function of the command interpreter is to read and execute the specified commands entered by the user. A lot of commands given at this level are used to manipulate files: create, delete, move, copy and more. Now there are also two methods to in which these commands can be implemented.
Figure 19
The first method shown above (Figure 19) implies that, the command interpreter itself has the code to execute user entered commands.
Figure 20
While for the second method (Figure 20) whenever command interpreter could not understand the commands entered by user in any way, what will happen, it simply use the command to identify a file to be loaded to the main memory and then executed.
3.1.2 GUI (Graphical User Interface)
Apart from Command Line Interface, there is also a second way which a user can interact with the operating system is through GUI (Graphical User Interface). The Graphical User Interface was developed in early 1981 by Alan Kay, Douglas Engelbart, and a group of other researches at Xerox PARC. In this interface, it provides user with a mouse based window and a menu system as the interface instead of just entering boring commands through the Command Line Interface. A Graphical User Interface provides a desktop image where the mouse pointer moves its position on images, or icons, on the screen (desktop) that represent programs, files, directories, and system functions according to how our mouse moves on a mouse pad. By clicking the mouse button, a mouse pointer can execute a program, select, move, create, and delete a file or directory which is recognized as a folder
Figure 21 Windows XP
Unlike a Command Line Interface, Graphical User Interface is more suitable for a computer illiterate user to learn and use because there is no need for users to memorize or to get use with specific commands in order to communicate with the Operating System. Due to the ease of use, now a day GUI OS have become the dominant OS which is used by most of the users.
The UI is very important for any programs created because it will determine how easy you can instruct the program to do what you want to. The choice of whether we should use a CLI or GUI OS is mostly depending on us. Some users may prefer a CLI OS more than a GUI OS because they provides a strong shell interfaces.
3.2 Process Control Management
A process is a program in execution mode. It is said to be in the running state if it is currently in the CPU. A process will be in the blocked state if it is waiting for some event to occur. The process will then be transfer to a blocked list where all process are in asleep mode or inactive, waiting for events that will awake it. A process will be in ready state if it is waiting to enter the CPU. All process in ready state will be in a ready list or ready queue. The process will entered the CPU based on the scheduling algorithm. A process may switch its state at any moment, and thus a record is needed to ensure that all process will be able to complete its task. All these information and more are recorded in process control block (PCB).
3.2.1 Process Control Block
The PCB is a data structure containing important information about the process which includes the below:
The current state of the process
Unique identification of the process
A pointer to the process’s parent (the process that created this process)
Pointers to the process’s child processes (processes created by this process)
The process’s priority
Pointers to locate the process’s memory
Pointers to allocated resources
A register save area
The processor it is running on (in multiprocessor system)
The PCB is very important and serves as a store of information that allows the OS to locate all critical information about a process. When the CPU switches between active processes, it will refer to the information saved in PCB in order to restart the process the next time it is in the CPU.
3.2.2 Scheduling Algorithm
Processes in the ready list or ready queue needs to enter into the CPU but the selection of which process to enter first is very critical as to avoid starvation. Besides that, all process has to be treated fairly and throughput has to be maximized. This complex problem is solved using scheduling algorithm. The scheduling algorithm will determine which process will enter the CPU first and for how long it will remain in the CPU.
In general, there are two kinds of scheduling algorithms, preemptive and nonpreemptive. In preemptive scheduling algorithms, the process will be forcefully removed from the CPU upon receiving a command from the OS. Examples of preemptive scheduling algorithms are round robin and multilevel feedback queue. In nonpreemptive scheduling algorithms, the process will only exits the CPU upon completion. Examples of nonpreemptive scheduling algorithms are first in first out (FIFO), shortest job first (SJF) and priority.
Windows XP uses a priority-based, preemptive scheduling algorithm. This algorithm will ensure that the higher priority process will be executed in the CPU first. The process will continue to run until it is preempted by a higher priority process, until it finishes, until its time quantum ends or until it switches to a block state. When a higher priority process becomes ready while a lower priority is running in the CPU, the lower priority process will be preempted. All processes will receive a priority boost after a wait event, but processes with a keyboard I/O wait will experience a greater boost than those in a disk I/O wait
3.3 Deadlock Management
“A process in a multiprogramming system is said to be in a state of deadlock (or deadlocked) if it is waiting for a particular event that will not occur.” (Deitel, 1990, p. 155) In short, a deadlock occurs when a process’s request for resources – be it a space in the main memory or data from the server – will never be fulfill.
A simple illustration of how deadlock occurs is shown in Figure 22. Process A requests for Resource 2. While on the other hand, Process B is holding Resource 2 and is requesting for Resource 1 which is being held by Process A. Each process is waiting for the resource to be freed and each process will not release the currently held resource until it acquires the next resource. This circular wait will cause an indefinite wait and is the main characteristic of a deadlock system.
Process A
Process B
Resource 1
Resource 2
Request
Hold
Hold
Request
Figure 22 Example of a deadlock system
According to Havender, there are four conditions which must be in effect for a deadlock to occur. There are
Processes claim exclusive control of the resource they require (mutual exclusion condition).
Processes hold resources already allocated to them while waiting for additional resources (wait for condition).
Resource cannot be removed from the processes holding them until the resources are used to completion (no preemption condition).
A circular chain of processes exists in which each process holds one or more resources that are requested by the next process in the chain (circular wait condition).
Thus, the way to overcome the deadlock system is to apply prevention, avoidance, detection and recovery method. In deadlock prevention, the strategy is to remove any possibility of a deadlock occurrence. Prevention is a clean solution but lacks in a good resource utilization system. While being so, it is the most widely used method.
In deadlock avoidance, the goal is to impose less rigid conditions while trying to get better resource utilization. Avoidance does not mean to remove all possibility of deadlock but allows deadlock to loom but carefully avoid it whenever a deadlock approaches.
In deadlock detection, a deadlock is allowed to take place either willingly or unwillingly. Once the deadlock occurs, the system will identify which process and resource is involved and cleared it from the system.
In deadlock recovery, deadlocks are cleared from the system, so that the process may complete its execution and release the resources. This method may not be the best as most of the flushed process will either loss part of the work if not all of the work previously done.
Windows XP applied multilevel feedback queue scheduling algorithm to prevent deadlock from happening by separating the ready queue to three separate queues. Each queue has its own scheduling algorithm with the first two applying round robin scheduling algorithm with different time quantum and last queue using first in first out scheduling algorithm. A new process enters into the first ready queue and waits for its turn. When it enters into the CPU, the process will receive 8 milliseconds. If it does not complete within the time quantum, it will be preempted and move to the second queue. In the second queue it will wait for its turn to enter into the CPU once more. Upon entering the CPU, it will receive 16 milliseconds to complete its task. If it is still not completed after 16 milliseconds, it will be preempted again and enter the third queue where the process will be finish upon entering the CPU using the first in first out scheduling algorithm. The entire process is illustrated in Figure 23.
Figure 23 Multilevel Feedback Queue
Quantum = 8ms
Quantum = 16ms
First in First out
Enter
Enter
Enter
CPU
Exit
Exit
Exit
3.4 Memory Management
In most of the modern computer, they will have a memory hierarchy with volatile cache, volatile main memory (RAM) and nonvolatile disk store. Operating system is responsible to coordinate how these memories are used. The memory manager is responsible for managing the memory hierarchy. Its importance task includes implement virtual memory, copy-on-write memory, large memory support and form the base for the cache manager.
There are two general approaches to the memory management can be used. The simplest strategy called Swapping. However, Windows XP is using another strategy called Virtual Memory which allows program to run even they are only a part of the program swapped in the main memory.
3.4.1 Virtual Memory
Windows XP will use the virtual memory to counterbalance when the random access memory (RAM) is insufficiency to run a program or operation. When a computer is short of RAM, virtual memory will moves the data or code from RAM to a space that called paging file. By doing this, the RAM will be free up and is able to complete the work.
In the virtual memory system, each process has its own virtual memory, called an address space. In Windows XP 32-bit edition, the virtual address space is 4 gigabytes (GB) and in can be split into two partitions from 2 GB is used by process another 2GB is used by system to 3GB for process and 1GB for system (MSDN Library, 2011). In 64-bit Windows XP, each process has the virtual address space about 7152GB on IA-64 bit system and 8192 GB on x64 system (Russinovich & Solomon, 2008). All process can access its virtual address space, but the address space is private and cannot be accessed by other process, unless it has been shared.
Figure 24 64-bit Windows XP VM space
Figure 24 32-bit Windows XP VM space
3.4.2 How Windows XP Handles Memory Management
Figure 25 Virtual memory requirement for 25 operations selected from an hour-long trace
Operation
Application
System data
System
Driver
The figure 25 show that, the amount of virtual memory usage which used by a number of operation taken from a long-running workload situation on Windows XP. The workload contained office productivity program and web browsing and the operation involved activity such as starting up an application, saving and printing documents, opening and closing a file or web page. The virtual memory shown the available amount of memory that can hold all the code and data used in the operation and all the resource that are locked into a computer memory. According to (Microsoft , n.d) the virtual memory can be used by the following:
The space taken by application. For the operation that depend almost completely on the system service, such as opening a web page, to substantial, as when an application starts and must initialize itself. This can be rarely from different.
The space taken by the driver code. This is relatively changeless, on account of much of the code driver is locked in the memory or is in regular use.
The allocated and mapped data used by the system. This contains registry data, many system data structure, and files accessed by operating system.
The space used by the system itself. This consists of the space used by the shell and all the system’s service processes.
3.4.5 Allocating Memory for Application
In the Figure 25, each operation takes from 20 MB to 50 MB of the virtual memory. The operating system will distribute the physical memory to map this virtual memory. The individual operation can easily fit in 64 MB of RAM, but if the user would like to proceed from operation to operation, some of the content will be replaced. As Figure 3 shown that, the total of 256 MB of distinct pages were touched. If consecutive operations overlap to a great extent in the virtual memory they touch, the new operation will require a little or no I/O. Switch from one application to other is likely to involve a larger change in the contents of the virtual space.
3.4.6 Balancing Memory Resources
There is no sole “memory requirement” for an application or the system. When the physical memory is deficient, the system will pay for the I/O penalties as the user proceed from operation to operation. When physical memory is not sufficient, the system will not need to pay for I/O penalties, because the system has used the memory to forestall it.
The operating system will choose which pages to keep and which to get rid of. Thus, the number of pages in use alone does not represent a measure of memory required. The memory manager will allow the process to grow beyond its maximum when it is paging heavily and there is enough memory. However, when there is no paging and high demand for physical memory on the system, memory manager will shrink a process below its working set minimum to make the memory available.
3.4.7 Placement Policy
Windows XP implements a combination of local (each process selects from its own set of allocated frames) and global replacement policy¼ˆprocess selects a replacement frame from the set of all frames¼‰. Common replacement policies include least recently used (LRU) and first in, first out (FIFO). The LRU algorithm requires the virtual memory system to track when a page in memory is used. It will replace the process that has not been used for a long time. The FIFO algorithm it removes the page that has been in physical memory for a long prior of time, even the process is in use.
3.5 Secondary Disk Scheduling Management
3.5.1 Secondary Storage
Secondary storage is a lowest level of file system. It is the progression from magnetic tapes to disks. Compared to disks, magnetic tape’s access time is much slower. Magnetic tapes are usually used to store and backup infrequently used data.
3.5.2 Disk Scheduling
Disk scheduling is the operation systems which is responsible to use the hardware efficiency. There are two criteria for disk drivers which is fast access time and also to increase disk bandwidth.
Basically access time has two major components
Seek Time refers to the time for the disk arm to move the head of the cylinder containing desired sector
Rotational Latency is the additional waiting time for the disk to rotate to the desired sector of the disk head
Disk bandwidth is the total number of bytes transferred divided by the total time between the first requests for service to the completion of the last transfer.
When a process needs an input/output from the disk, system calls are sent to the operating system. If the disk is free, then request will be serviced. Else, the request will be located on a queue.
3.5.3 Disk Scheduling Algorithms
There are 6 types of disk scheduling algorithms which are:
First Come First Serve
Shortest Seek Time First
SCAN
C-SCAN
LOOK
C-LOOK
3.5.3.1 First Come First Serve
FCFS is the simplest disk scheduling algorithm among the others. It isn’t providing the fastest service. As the request arrives they are placed on a queue and are satisfied in order of arrival.
Figure 26 FCFS disk scheduling
3.5.3.2 Shortest Seek Time First
SSTF prioritize the first request which is nearest to the current head position, it minimizes the seek time. Requests can arrive at any time but the request which located furthest from the head will need to wait for a long time before it gets serviced.
Figure 27 SSTF disk scheduling
3.5.3.3 SCAN
The disk starts at one end and move towards the other end, scanning back and forth. The head reverses and moves back. It serves requests while moving back. If request reaches right in front of the head then it will get serviced first. However if a request reaches just after the back of the head, the request will need to wait until the arm moves back. SCAN is also known as the elevator syndrome.
Figure 28 Scan disk scheduling
3.5.3.4 C-SCAN
Figure 29 C-SCAN disk shedulingJust like SCAN disk scheduling algorithm, C-SCAN is a variant. It is a circular scan. It starts servicing from the head until it reaches the end, then the arm moves back without servicing any requests on queue.
3.5.3.5 LOOK
The disk arm moves from one end to the other just like SCAN and C-SCAN. Instead of going to the end of the disk like SCAN disk scheduling algorithm, LOOK goes as far as the final request.
Queue = 23, 89, 132, 42, 187
There are 200 cylinders numbered from 0 – 199; Head starts at 100
Figure 30 LOOK disk sheduling
3.5.3.6 C-LOOK
C-Look disk scheduling algorithm starts from the current head and moves towards the end and stops at the last request without going to the end of the disk. When reverse back, it does not service any requests on queue.
Figure 31 C-LOOK disk scheduling
3.6 Standard Support
Most of the Windows user will skip right past the Help files in Windows 95 and 98, which are due to a Help engine that’s extremely difficult to navigate. In Windows Me and 2000, the HTML-based interface is much easier to use, but the online Help file still a user manual that is in a small pieces and need to be update (Bott et al., 2001).
In Windows XP, The Help And Support Center in Home and Professional have include enormous collection of resource in every level of experience. Besides that, Windows XP also provide extra integrated into the Help And Support Center like (Bott et al., 2001):
Links to system tools and utilities which includ Disk Defragmenter, System Configuration Utility (Msconfig), Network Diagnostics and Windows Update, all of which run within the Help And Support Center window.
Syntax and usage information for 175 alphabetically command-line options.
Provide the links that can collect up-to-date information about your system and current configuration, with details about all installed hardware, software, and services.
Able to access to error logs, status of services and other advanced system information.
Able to access to Group Policy settings (Windows XP Professional only).
Enable links to external information sources, such as the Microsoft Knowledge Base and an assortment of Windows-focused newsgroups.
Access to Remote Assistance, which allows a Windows XP user to ask a friend for help; the more experienced user can connect directly to the machine experiencing the problem via the Internet or a local area network and make needed repairs or configuration changes directly.
Figure 32
3
2
1
Help topic: This left-hand column list down the common Help topic. This list also replaces the Help Contents page in the previous Windows version.
The Did You Know: this is provided by Microsoft support.
Ask for assistance and pick a task: lead to the tools and support resource.
3.6.1 Using the Help and Support Center
3.6.1.1 Searching for help topic
Figure 33
The search result can be break down into three groups:
Suggested Topic: the Help and Support Center will show user some suggested topic according to the keyword that the user entered.
Full-Text Search Matched: this group will show the topic where the content of Help and Support Center match with the phases that user entered.
Microsoft Knowledge Base: This group searches Microsoft’s extensive collection of documentation for bug fixes and technical explanations that aren’t available in the local Help files
Figure 325Using the Help Index
The text box in the Index list resembles the Search box, but it behaves quite differently. As you key in a text in this box, the Index selection jumps to the first topic which matches the first characters that you entered. The comparison is based on the beginning of the description. For example, if you enter a word “networking”, it will show the group of topics that begin with that keyword, instead of the “Home Networking” entry (Bott et al., 2001).
There are many other tasks you can do it by using Help and Support Center, for example customizing the Help and support center, sharing Help files, connecting to another PC with remote assistance and connecting to Microsoft support.
Comparison
Below is the table of comparison between Windows XP and Windows 7 in user interface, process control management, deadlock management, secondary disk scheduling management and standard support.
Subject
Windows XP
Windows 7
User Interface
Classic/Default Start Menu
Run icon
Easy to customise Start Menu
3 default desktop icons
Gadgets
Search box in start menu
Aero Flip 3D
Without Run icon
1 default desktop icons
Process Control
priority-based, preemptive scheduling algorithm
Deadlock Management
Multilevel Feedback Queue scheduling algorithm
Secondary Disk
Shortest Seek Time First
C-SCAN
Shortest Seek Time First
Standard Support
Help and Support function with online support capabilities.
Table 5 Comparison
Conclusion
Operating system is the heart of the computer system without which the computer will only be a piece of hardware. The operating system is made up of complex algorithms and mathematical calculations. Algorithms like priority-based, preemptive CPU scheduling algorithm, multilevel feedback queue scheduling algorithm, least recently used page replacement algorithm and first in first out page replacement algorithm all work closely to ensure that the user will have the best experience in using the Windows XP operating system.
Besides that, like a traffic police, OS ensures that all processes and users in the networked environment do not interfere with one another. OS also communicates with I/O devices like keyboard, mouse and monitor for the user to interact with the system. With an interactive and innovative GUI, Windows XP have proved to be a reliable operating system in its time.
Limitation/Extension Case Study
A survey was conducted online with 101 people on which OS do they prefer when given a choice of Windows XP & Linux. 89 persons selected Windows XP, with a ratio of 51.69% females and 48.31 males while 12 others selected Linux
OS Selected
Count
Windows XP
89
Linux
12
TOTAL
101
Table 6 Survey of OS
Why do you choose Windows XP?
Count
Compatibility with 3rd party application
31
Easy to install
38
Easy to use
66
Efficient
41
Good graphical user interface (GUI)
33
Market penetration
28
None of the above
3
TOTAL
240
Table 7 Reason of OS
Chart 1 Breakdown of Reason
Limitation of case study
Due to the unavailability of a computer system, the installation process was done based on personal experience and all screenshots was taken from websites. In addition, this assignment did not give a detailed comparison about user interface, process control management, secondary disk scheduling, deadlock and standard support owing to the misunderstanding of the assignment question, but we have did an overall comparison on it.
Appendices
No
Group Number #
Team Member Names
Research and Investigation (30)
Installation(20)
Documentation (10)
Referencing (10)
Group Marks (70)
Analysis (15)
Presentation (15)
Ind. Marks (30)
Total (100)
1
NG WERN KEN
2
SIMON SHU SUN MING
3
LIEW KOK SIONG
Minutes of Weekly Meetings
Week 1
Meeting Name
1st meeting
Date
28/2/2011
Venue
TPM (Syndicate Room)
Time
12.00am
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Choose the operating system
Define the work to each member
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Choose the operating system
Decide to do Windows XP,
the comparison OS is Linux.
All members
–
Define the work to each member
Each member chooses a topic under analysis.
All members
–
Research
All members should do a research about Windows XP in order to do the introduction of Windows XP in next meeting.
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 2
Meeting Name
2nd meeting
Date
7/3/2011
Venue
TPM (Syndicate Room)
Time
12.00am
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Discuss the research problem
Member report their current progress.
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Discuss the research problem
Member share their research materials (books) to the other to solve research problem.
Windows XP inside out
Windows Internal
All members
–
Report current progress
Members share their information that has been found.
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 3
Meeting Name
3nd meeting
Date
14/3/2011
Venue
ENT (3-2 syndicate room)
Time
12.30am
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Discuss the introduction and complete it.
Discuss the system hardware requirement
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Discuss the introduction and complete it.
Members give their opinion and leader arranges and writes it down.
All members
–
Discuss the system hardware requirement
Complete the System hardware requirement. Leader will finalise it and send to all members via e-mail by 15/3/2011.
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 4
Meeting Name
4nd meeting
Date
16/3/2011
Venue
TPM (L1-6)
Time
1.45pm
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Discuss the 2nd stage of the assignment.
Meeting issue
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Discuss the memory management
Members discuss the difference between Windows XP and Linux. Leader writes it down and arrange in the table.
All members
–
Meeting issue
There will be no meeting on next week.
All members should process their analysis.
The next meeting is on 28/3/2011.
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 5
Meeting Name
5nd meeting
Date
28/3/2011
Venue
TPM (L2-3)
Time
1.45pm
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Discuss the 2nd of the assignment
Discuss about the Extension study
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Discuss the 2nd of the assignment.
Members report their work and discuss about the topic that members misunderstand.
All analysis do not need to do comparison, member should focus more on Windows XP.
All members
–
Discuss about the Extension study
Conduct a survey about Windows XP and Linux
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 6
Meeting Name
6nd meeting
Date
4/4/2011
Venue
LAB L3 – 05
Time
12.00am
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Report the 2nd stage of the assignment progress
Extension study
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Report the 2nd stage of the assignment progress.
Members report their work progress.
All members
–
Extension study
Close the survey on internet. Document the survey result and create chart.
All members
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
Week 7
Meeting Name
7nd meeting
Date
14/4/2011
Venue
TPM (Syndicate room)
Time
12.00am
Members Present
Members Absent
Simon Shu Sun Ming
Ng Wern Ken
Liow Kok Siong
Agenda of the Meeting:
Combine the 2nd stage of the assignment
Review the whole assignment
Define the last work
No
Topic
Action Point
Responsibility
Scheduled Closure Date
Combine the 2nd stage of the assignment
Members give the softcopy to leader. Leader does the formatting and combination.
All members
–
Review the whole assignment
Leader gives each member a final assignment. Members pinpoint and report the problem to leader.
All members
–
Define the last work
Ken and Simon – Check the whole assignment again.
Siong- print out and binding.
All member
–
(NG WERN KEN) (SIMON SHU SUN MING) (LIEW KOK SIONG)
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