WIN.COM is the
executable file
In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions", as opposed to a da ...
used to load versions of
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 ...
that run from
DOS. In
Windows 3.11 and its predecessors, it is executed either manually from the DOS prompt or as a line in
AUTOEXEC.BAT. In
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...
and onward it is automatically invoked by
IO.SYS after AUTOEXEC.BAT is processed.
The file is present in the SYSTEM32 directory of some
Windows NT
Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...
-based versions of Windows (such as
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...
,
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
and
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
) for backwards compatibility purposes.
Usage
WIN.COM has several parameters that facilitate system recovery and diagnostics.
Issues
Corruption or deletion of WIN.COM caused many issues for users of
Windows 1.0,
Windows 2.0,
Windows 3.0,
Windows 3.1, Windows 95,
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...
, and
Windows Me
Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...
, and some early Windows viruses targeted WIN.COM. Corruption of WIN.COM would cause the system to be unable to load the graphical user interface.
In all these versions (except for Windows Me without a boot disk), the system could still be booted to the underlying DOS prompt.
See also
*
AUTOEXEC.BAT
*
COM file
A COM file is a type of simple executable file. On the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VAX operating systems of the 1970s, .COM was used as a filename extension for text files containing commands to be issued to the operating system (sim ...
*
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 op ...
References
{{Reflist
Windows files
DOS files