IO.SYS

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IO.SYS is an essential part of DOS and Windows 9x. The boot sector of the boot drive's main purpose is to load IO.SYS into memory and transfer control to it. IO.SYS then loads the hardware interfacing routines that non-NT based Windows and DOS operating systems rely on, and then loads MSDOS.SYS.

As defined by the A+ Training Guide, 5th edition, copyright 2004, by: Charles J. Brooks; IO.SYS is a special hidden, read-only boot up file that the Bootstrap Loader finds and moves into RAM to manage the boot up process. After the boot up is complete, this file manages the basic I/O routines of the system. This includes communication between the system and I/O devices such as hard disks, printers, FDD, as well as others.

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