A system file in computers is a critical
computer file
A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and trans ...
without which a computer system may not operate correctly. These files may come as part of the
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
, a third-party
device driver
In computing, 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, enabling operating systems and o ...
or other sources.
Microsoft Windows and
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...
mark their more valuable system files with a "system"
attribute to protect them against accidental deletion. (Although the system attribute can be manually put on any arbitrary file; these files do not become system files.)
Specific example of system files include the files with
.sys
.sys is a filename extension used in MS-DOS applications and Microsoft Windows operating systems. They are system files that contain device drivers or hardware configurations for the system.
Most DOS files are real mode device drivers. Certain ...
filename extension
A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically ...
in MS-DOS. In
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Wi ...
family, the system files are mainly under the
folder C:\Windows\System32. In
Mac OS
Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc.
In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded " ...
they are in the ''
System suitcase The System suitcase (so-called because its icon depicts a suitcase; officially called the System file) is one of two essential files that make up the classic Mac OS, the other being the Macintosh Finder. If either file is missing or corrupted, a Mac ...
''. And in
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
system the system files are located under folders
/boot (the
kernel
Kernel may refer to:
Computing
* Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems
* Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution
* Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming
* Kernel method, in machine lea ...
itself),
/usr/sbin (
system utilities) and
/usr/lib/modules (kernel
device driver
In computing, 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, enabling operating systems and o ...
s).
Computer files
{{Computer files