SYSTEM.INI is an initialization ( INI file) used in early versions of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

(from 1.01 up to Me) to load

device drivers In the context of an operating system, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabli ...

and the default

Windows shell The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu, the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of ...

(

Program Manager Program Manager is the shell of Windows 3.x and Windows NT 3.x operating systems. This shell exposed a task-oriented graphical user interface (GUI), consisting of ''icons'' ( shortcuts for programs) arranged into ''program groups''. It replaced ...

Windows Explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application and default desktop environment that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user i ...

), among other system settings. Many of these settings were honored in Windows 9x ( 95, 98 and Me), although the INI files had begun to be phased out in favor of the

Windows Registry The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, a ...

. Windows NT 4.0,

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

, XP and Server 2003 still acknowledge some SYSTEM.INI entries in order to provide backwards compatibility with older 16-bit applications. Windows

Vista Vista may refer to: Software *Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007 * VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) a medical records system of the United States ...

and beyond also have SYSTEM.INI as well. However, when a fresh install of XP/ Server 2003 is performed, the SYSTEM.INI file created contains by default only these lines: ; for 16-bit app support

rivers A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it ru ...

wave=mmdrv.dll timer=timer.drv ci river32 86enhwoafont=dosapp.FON EGA80WOA.FON=EGA80WOA.FON EGA40WOA.FON=EGA40WOA.FON CGA80WOA.FON=CGA80WOA.FON CGA40WOA.FON=CGA40WOA.FON

Editing

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

bundles two specialized text/

ASCII ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...

editors for core

configuration file A configuration file, a.k.a. config file, is a computer file, file that stores computer data, data used to configure a software system such as an application software, application, a server (computing), server or an operating system. Some applic ...

s (such as PROTOCOL.INI, WIN.INI, SYSTEM.INI, CONFIG.SYS, and AUTOEXEC.BAT) with its operating systems. Sysedit is an MDI

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...

that opens all these files simultaneously, available in all versions of Windows beginning with

Windows 3.0 Windows 3.0 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, launched on May 22, 1990. It introduces a new graphical user interface (GUI) that represents applications as clickable icons, instead of the list of file names in its predecessors. ...

, except MeMSCONFIG and SYSEDIT
/ref> and no longer after Windows 7. MSConfig is a front end interface application that allows the user to enable and disable drivers, Windows shell and applications separately from being loaded at startup by the aforementioned files and from the Run, RunEx, and RunOnce

keys.

References

External links

SYSTEM.INI in Windows 3.x (3.0, 3.10 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11) and Windows 9x (95, 98 and Me): *MSKB
Windows 3.1 Resource Kit SYSTEM.INI [386ENH] Section A-L
*MSKB
Windows 3.1 Resource Kit SYSTEM.INI [386ENH] Section M-Z
*MDGx

Windows files Configuration files {{Windows-stub